Cubs 365, February 16

Every day in 2012, the Just One Bad Century blog will feature a story about this day in Cubs history. We're calling it Cubs 365.

On this day in 1880, future Cub Carl Lundgren was born. Lundgren would go on to pitch for three Cubs pennant winners (1906, 1907, & 1908). Even though he was a great pitcher, he never pitched in the World Series during those pennant winning seasons because there were even better pitchers on the team (like Mordecai Brown, Orval Overall, and big Ed Reulbach).

Lundgren was especially effective early in the season in cold weather, which led to his nickname "The Human Icicle." He won 17 games for the '06 pennant winners and 18 games for the '07 champs (with an unbelievable ERA of only 1.17 for the season), but slumped in '08 and managed to only win 6 games. After the next season his career was over.

Sure, it helped to pitch for the best team in baseball with the league's best defense, and sure he was overshadowed by the bigger stars on the team, but Lundgren's teammates didn't just think of him of as their fifth or (sometimes) sixth starter. He was a shrewd baseball man; just as valuable on the bench as he was on the field. Lundgren later went on to succeed Branch Rickey as the baseball coach at the University of Michigan, before ending his career in his dream job, as the coach of his alma mater, the University of Illinois.