Lee Paul Eilbracht (March 22, 1924 – January 2, 2013) was an American college baseball coach and player in the Chicago Cubs organization.
Biography
editBorn in St. Louis, Missouri, Eilbracht was raised in Waterloo, Illinois.[citation needed]
Eilbracht is the winningest coach in Illinois Fighting Illini baseball history and earned All-America honors as a collegiate player. Swami, as he was dubbed, posted a 518–395 record in 27 seasons at the helm from 1952 through 1978, winning four Big Ten Conference titles while leading his team to the NCAA District Playoffs three times.[1]
As an Illini catcher, Eilbracht was a three-time letterwinner in 1943 and from 1946 to 1947. Moreover, he garnered Most Valuable Player in these last seasons and topped the Big Ten in hitting in 1946 with a .484 batting average.[1] In between, he served in the Army during World War II before returning to the University of Illinois.[2]
After graduation, Eilbracht pursued a professional career as a player and manager in the Chicago Cubs Minor League system from 1947 to 1952. Eilbracht hit .282 with 30 home runs in 391 games at three different levels.[3] He was a player-manager of the Clinton Cubs for part of the 1948 season when they won the Central Association title, and then served as player-manager for the Sioux Falls Canaries from mid-1949 to mid-1951.[3] He ended his playing career with the Danville Dans in 1952.[3] Following the death of Illini head coach Wally Roettger in 1951, Eilbracht took charge of the team a year later.[2]
Eilbracht served as an assistant coach for the United States team that played baseball at the 1964 Summer Olympics as a demonstration sport in Tokyo.[4] He also served as the first executive director for the American Baseball Coaches Association, retiring after the 1978 season.[1] He then worked as an analyst on Illini baseball broadcasts starting in the 1990s, and acted as a consultant for the Arizona Diamondbacks during several spring trainings.[1] Additionally, he worked as an adviser and had a small part in the 1992 film A League of Their Own.[2]
Eilbracht was a long-time resident of Savoy, Illinois, where he died in 2013 at the age of 88.[2]
References
edit- ^ a b c d "Former Coach Lee Eilbracht Passes Away". illinibaseball.com. Illinois Fighting Illini baseball. January 4, 2013. Archived from the original on February 26, 2013.
- ^ a b c d Schaefer, Teryn (January 9, 2013). "Coaching legend Eilbracht dies". Waterloo, Illinois: Republic-Times. Retrieved February 2, 2019.
- ^ a b c Baseball Reference – Minor League Baseball Statistics
- ^ "NCAA News" (PDF). Vol. 1, no. 4. September–October 1964. p. 4. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 24, 2012 – via Wayback Machine.
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