Lou Brock
Louis Clark Brock was an American professional baseball left fielder. He began his 19-year Major League Baseball career with the 1961 Chicago Cubs but spent most of it as a left fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. An All-Star for six seasons, Brock was elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985 in his first year of eligibility and was inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2014.
Best known for stealing bases, Brock led the National League in stolen bases in eight seasons, and set then-major league records for most steals in a single season and in a career. A member of the 3,000-hit club, he batted over.300 in full seasons seven times, and had additional full seasons of.297,.298, and.299. He finished his career with a.304 batting average in 436 plate appearances at age 40 in 1979, compiling a.293 career batting average. Brock led the NL in doubles and triples in 1968, and in singles in 1972. In 1974, he was the runner-up for the NL Most Valuable Player Award. After retiring as a player, he served as a special instructor coach for the Cardinals.
Early life
Louis Clark Brock was born on June 18, 1939, in El Dorado, Arkansas, to a family of sharecroppers. His family moved to Collinston, Louisiana, when he was two years old. While his family did not have much money, he said that he never felt poor because, "If you don't have something, you don't miss it." Brock grew up as a fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers, a team that included pioneering African-American ballplayers Jackie Robinson, Don Newcombe, and Roy Campanella. Although he did not play in organized baseball until he reached the 11th grade, he learned much about the sport from listening to Cardinals radio broadcaster Harry Caray describe the way major league hitters stood at the plate. After attending high school in Mer Rouge, Louisiana, he received academic assistance to attend Southern University in Baton Rouge, but when a low grade in his first semester meant the possibility of losing his scholarship, he decided to try out for the school's baseball team in order to secure an athletic scholarship.Baseball career
College and the minor leagues
Brock hit for a.189 batting average in his first year of college baseball, but improved the following year to hit.500. Southern University won the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics' baseball championship during his junior year, and Brock was selected for the United States baseball team in the 1959 Pan American Games. When Brock decided to pursue a professional baseball career, he traveled to St. Louis to try out for the Cardinals, but the scout who had recommended him was in Seattle to sign Ray Washburn. He then decided to try out for the Chicago Cubs, who signed him as an amateur free agent in 1960. Assigned to play for the St. Cloud Rox, Brock won the 1961 Northern League batting championship with a.361 batting average.Chicago Cubs (1961–1964)
Brock made his major league debut with the Cubs on September 10, 1961, at the age of 22. 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 City 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, 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 before the reconstruction. Brock was not known as a power hitter, though he aspired to be one.Brock had great speed on the basepaths and in right field, and superior base running instincts, but failed to impress Cubs management with his bat. After hitting for only a combined.260 average over his first two seasons, Brock was made part of a mid-season 1964 trade with the St. Louis Cardinals. 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. 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.
St. Louis Cardinals (1964–1979)
After Brock was traded to the Cardinals, his career turned around. He moved to left field and batted.348 and stole 33 bases over the remainder of the 1964 season. 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. 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. 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. 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.In 1966, Brock’s 74 steals ended Maury Wills' six-year reign as the National League's stolen base champion. In David Halberstam's book, October 1964, the author stated manager Johnny Keane asked Brock to forgo hitting home runs in favor of stealing bases. Brock went on to lead the National League in stolen bases eight times within a nine-year span between 1966 and 1974.
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. He was hitting for a.328 average by mid-June, and earned the start in left field for the National League in the 1967 All-Star Game. After suffering through a mid-season slump, he recovered to finish the season with a career-high 206 hits and a.299 batting average. He topped the NL in runs and stolen bases while helping lead the Cardinals to the National League pennant by ten and a half games. Brock became the first player in MLB history to steal 50 bases and hit 20 home runs in the same season. He then stormed through the 1967 World Series, hitting for a.414 average, scoring eight runs, and setting a World Series record with seven stolen bases, as the Cardinals defeated the Boston Red Sox in seven games.
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. 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 Game 4 to help the Cardinals build a three-game to one advantage over the Tigers. Going into the fifth inning of Game 5 with a 3–2 lead, the Cardinals appeared to be on the verge of winning a second consecutive World Series. 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. 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. In Game 7, Brock was picked off base by Lolich, extinguishing a possible Cardinals rally. The Tigers rebounded from being down three games to one behind the excellent pitching of Mickey Lolich to win the series. Brock once again stole seven bases and was the leading hitter in the series, posting a.464 batting average with six runs and five runs batted in.
Beginning in 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. Brock won his second NL Player of the Month Award in August 1974, marking one of only four times the award was given to a player who slugged below.500.
In 1972, rather than trying to maximize his lead, the traditional method for setting up a stolen base, Brock pioneered the “rolling start”.
Stolen base records
On September 10, 1974, Brock tied Wills' single-season stolen bases mark of 104 with a first-inning steal of second base in a game against the visiting Philadelphia Phillies, then broke the record with another swipe of second in the seventh inning. He ended the season with a new major league single-season record of 118 stolen bases. Brock finished second to Steve Garvey in the balloting for the 1974 National League Most Valuable Player Award.In a game against the San Diego Padres on August 29, 1977, at San Diego Stadium, Brock broke Ty Cobb's career record of 892 stolen bases and became the all-time major league stolen base leader. Cobb's record had been one of the most durable in baseball and, like Babe Ruth's record of 714 career home runs, had been considered unbreakable by some observers. Brock held this record until May 31, 1991, when it was broken by Rickey Henderson of the Oakland Athletics, who would go on to steal a total of 1,406 bases.
Brock remained best known for base-stealing and starting Cardinals rallies. He was said to have disliked Wills' method of base-stealing, instead shortening his leads and going hard. He was also an early student of game films. In 1964, Brock acquired a movie camera and filmed opposing pitchers from the dugout to study their windups and pickoff moves to detect weaknesses he could exploit.