Obituaries

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Lou Brock, one-time stolen-base record-holder (single season and career)


Louis Clark Brock (June 18, 1939 – September 6, 2020) was an American professional baseball outfielder. He began his 19-year Major League Baseball (MLB) career with the 1961 Chicago Cubs but spent the majority of big league career as a left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. Brock was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985[1] and the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2014. He was a special instructor coach for the St. Louis Cardinals.

Brock was best known for breaking Ty Cobb's all-time major league stolen base record in 1977.[2] He was an All-Star for six seasons and a National League (NL) stolen base leader for eight seasons. Brock led the NL in doubles and triples in 1968. He also led the NL in singles in 1972, and was the runner-up for the NL Most Valuable Player Award in 1974.





Stealing second base off Detroit Tigers' pitcher Mickey Lolich in the sixth inning of the second game of the World Series (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)



Number retired by the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.

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Chicago Cubs

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Brock in 1964 as a member of the Chicago Cubs.

Brock made his major league debut with the Cubs on September 10, 1961, at the age of 22.[5] In his rookie season of 1962, Brock became one of four players to hit a home run into the center-field bleachers at the old Polo Grounds in New York since its 1923 reconstruction. His blast came against Al Jackson in the first game of a June 17 doubleheader against the New York Mets and was one of two that cleared the wall in consecutive days,[2] with Hank Aaron's coming the very next day. Joe Adcock was the first to hit a ball over that wall, in 1953. Babe Ruth reached the old bleachers (a comparable distance) before the reconstruction. Brock was not known as a power hitter, but he did display significant power from time to time.
Brock had great speed and base running instincts, but the young right fielder failed to impress the Cubs management, hitting for only a combined .260 average over his first two seasons. In 1964 after losing patience with his development, the Cubs gave up on Brock and made him part of a trade with the St. Louis Cardinals.[6] The June 15 deadline deal for pitcher Ernie Broglio saw Brock, Jack Spring, and Paul Toth head to St. Louis for Broglio, Bobby Shantz, and Doug Clemens. Cardinals general manager Bing Devine specifically sought Brock at the insistence of Cardinals' manager Johnny Keane to increase team speed and solidify the Cardinals' lineup, which was struggling after the retirement of left fielder Stan Musial in 1963.[7] At the time, many thought the deal was a heist for the Cubs. Broglio had led the National League in wins four years earlier, and had won 18 games the season before the trade.[8]

St. Louis Cardinals

After Brock was traded to the Cardinals, his career turned around significantly. He moved to left field and batted .348 and stole 33 bases for the remainder of the 1964 season.[5] At the time of the trade, the Cardinals were 28–31, in eighth place in the National League, trailing even the Cubs, who were 27–27 and in sixth place. Brock helped the Cardinals storm from behind to capture the National League pennant on the last day of the season.[2] Four months to the day after Brock's trade, the Cardinals won the 1964 World Series in seven games over the favored New York Yankees, who were appearing in their 14th World Series in 16 years (and their last until a dozen years later). Brock's contributions to the Cardinals' championship season were recognized when he finished in tenth place in voting for the 1964 National League Most Valuable Player Award.[9] Meanwhile, Broglio won only seven games for the Chicago Cubs before retiring from baseball after the 1966 season. To this day, the trade of Brock for Broglio is considered one of the most lopsided deals in baseball history.[10]

Lou Brock was part of the Cardinals' coaching staff during the team's 2005 spring training.

In 1966, Brock ended Maury Wills' six-year reign as the National League's stolen base champion with 74 steals.[11] In David Halberstam's book, October 1964, the author states that manager Johnny Keane asked Brock to forgo hitting home runs in favor of stealing bases.[12] Brock went on to lead the National League in stolen bases eight times within a nine-year span between 1966 and 1974 (former teammate Bobby Tolan led the league in steals in 1970).[2]

Brock began the 1967 season by hitting five home runs in the first four games of the season, becoming the first player to do so (Barry Bonds tied this record in 2002).[13] He was hitting for a .328 average by mid-June to earn the role as the starting left fielder for the National League in the 1967 All-Star Game.[14][15] After suffering through a mid-season slump, he recovered to finish the season with a career-high 206 hits and a .299 batting average while leading the league in stolen bases and runs scored as the Cardinals won the National League pennant by ten and a half games. Brock became the first player to steal 50 bases and hit 20 home runs in the same season.[2] In the 1967 World Series, Brock hit for a .414 average, scored 8 runs and set a World Series record with seven stolen bases as the Cardinals defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games.[16]
The Cardinals won the National League pennant for a second consecutive year in 1968 as Brock once again led the league in stolen bases as well as in doubles and triples.[5] In the 1968 World Series against the Detroit Tigers, Brock had three stolen bases in Game 3 and contributed a double, triple, home run and four runs batted in during Game 4 to help the Cardinals build a three-games to one advantage over the Tigers.[17] The Cardinals appeared to be on the verge of winning a second consecutive World Series, going into the fifth inning of Game 5 with a 3–2 lead.[17] Although Brock's base running abilities had proven to be a factor in the previous four games, his carelessness may have cost the Cardinals a run.[17] After Brock had hit a double, he tried to score standing up on Julián Javier's single to left, but Willie Horton threw him out with a strong throw to home plate.[17] Detroit rallied for three runs in the seventh inning as Mickey Lolich shut out the Cardinals for the final eight innings to win the game for the Tigers.[17] In Game 7, Brock had another crucial miscue when he was picked off base by Lolich, extinguishing a possible Cardinals rally.[18] The Tigers rallied from being down three games to one behind the excellent pitching of Mickey Lolich to win the series.[17] Brock once again stole seven bases and was the leading hitter in the series, posting a .464 batting average with 6 runs and 5 runs batted in.[19]

Lou Brock stealing at Busch Stadium vs the Atlanta Braves, 1975.

Beginning in [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1969_St._Louis_Cardinals_season]1969, Brock produced six consecutive seasons with 190 hits or better. He was named NL Player of the Month for the first of three times in his career in May 1971 with a .405 batting average and 8 stolen bases. In August 1973, he broke a record set by Ty Cobb when he stole his 50th base of the season, marking the ninth time he had stolen 50 or more bases in a season.[20] Brock won his second NL Player of the Month Award in August 1974, with 29 stolen bases in 30 games, despite batting only .326 and he was the first batter to be named Player of the Month without hitting a home run in the month of his award.

In 1972, Brock improved on Maury Wills' method by, instead of trying to maximize lead off distance, focusing on starting with a little momentum. "Brock pioneered the rolling start," states a later Sports Illustrated article, which also maintains that base stealing tends to be over-rated as a factor in team success.[21]

On September 10, 1974, Brock tied Wills' single-season mark of 104 with a first inning steal of second base, and then captured sole possession of the record with another swipe of second in the seventh inning.[22] He ended the season with a new major league single-season record of 118 stolen bases.[2] Brock finished second to Steve Garvey in the balloting for the 1974 National League Most Valuable Player Award.[23]
In a game against the San Diego Padres on August 29, 1977 at Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego, Brock became the all-time major league stolen base leader when he broke Ty Cobb's career record of 892 stolen bases.[24] The record had been one of the most durable in baseball history and like Babe Ruth's record of 714 career home runs, had been considered unbreakable by some observers.[12]
Brock remained best known for base-stealing and starting Cardinals rallies. He was said to have disdained Wills' method of base-stealing, instead shortening his leads and going hard. He was also an early student of game films. He used an 8-millimetre (0.31 in) movie camera from the dugout to film opposing pitchers and study their windups and pickoff moves to detect weaknesses he could exploit.

Brock fell into a hitting slump early in the 1978 season and lost the left fielder's job. However, he fought back during spring training in 1979 with a .345 batting average to regain his starting job.[25][26] Brock was named Player of the Month for the month of May 1979, during which he produced a .433 batting average.[27]

On August 13, 1979, Brock became the fourteenth player in Major League Baseball history to reach the 3,000 hits plateau against the team that traded him, the Chicago Cubs.[28] Approximately one month later, Carl Yastrzemski reached the same plateau and was promptly invited to the White House by Massachusetts native and Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill. Brock was reported to have felt slighted that he hadn't received a similar invitation.[29] Brock originally stated that he wouldn't go to the White House even if he was invited. However, after consideration he decided that forgiveness was the best course and accepted a belated invitation to meet with the President.[30] Brock retired at the end of the season, having posted a .304 batting average in his last season at the age of 40.[5] At the end of the season, he was named the National League Comeback Player of the Year — the first player to be so named in his final Major League season.

In a 19-year major league career, Brock played in 2,616 games, accumulating 3,023 hits in 10,332 at bats for a .293 career batting average along with 486 doubles, 141 triples, 149 home runs, 900 RBI, 1,610 runs , 938 stolen bases, 761 bases on balls, .343 on-base percentage and .410 slugging percentage.[5] A six-time All-Star, Brock hit over .300 eight times during his career.[5] He ended his career with a .959 career fielding percentage.[5]
Brock held the single-season stolen base record with 118 until it was broken by Rickey Henderson in 1982. He also held the major league record for career stolen bases with 938 until it was also broken by Henderson in 1991.[2] He led the National League in stolen bases for a record eight times and also had a record 12 consecutive seasons with 50 or more stolen bases.[5] Brock is still the National League's leader in career stolen bases.[31]
Brock's .391 World Series batting average is the highest for anyone who played over 20 series games.[2][5] His 14 stolen bases in World Series play are also a series record.[32] Brock's 13 hits in the 1968 World Series tied a single-series record previously made by Bobby Richardson in 1964 against his Cardinals' team, and later tied in 1986 by Marty Barrett.[33]
In a unique (if incidental) accomplishment, Brock was the first player ever to bat in a major league regular season game in Canada. Leading off against Montreal Expo pitcher Larry Jaster (a Cardinal teammate of Brock's just the year before, who had been acquired by the Expos in that offseason's expansion draft) in the Cardinals' April 14, 1969 game at Jarry Park, he lined out to second baseman Gary Sutherland.