Greatest Cardinals No. 12: OF Lou Brock

NOTE: The BND has endeavored to identify an objective list of the top 100 St. Louis Cardinals players of all time, based on statistical formulas developed through sabermetrics. We’ll count down the list daily, player by player, until April 4, the day of the Cardinals’ 2019 home opener. The running list and player bios can be found at bnd.com.

NO. 12: OF LOU BROCK

Lou Brock was a fair high school baseball player, but because he didn’t join the team until his junior year, his talent was still too raw to capture the attention of college coaches.

So if not for an academic scholarship to Southern University, he may never have left his hometown of Collinston, Louisiana (pop. 500). Conversely, had he actually studied once he got to the traditionally all-black university in Baton Rouge, his baseball playing days may also have ended out there in the sticks.

Brock, who majored in mathematics, lost his scholarship because he didn’t keep up his grades. Desperate to stay in school, he turned to the baseball team as a walk-on, hoping eventually to earn his keep as an athlete. With a .545 batting average, 13 home runs and the school’s first NAIA national championship, he did more than that. In the spring of 1961, Hall of Famer and Negro League legend Buck O’Neil, then a scout with the Chicago Cubs, offered him a pro contract with a $30,000 bonus, which Brock accepted.

In just 128 games in St. Cloud of the Class C Northern League, Brock batted .361 with 14 home runs, 82 RBIs, 38 stolen bases and 117 runs scored. Certainly, the performance warranted a promotion, but the Cubs advanced him beyond the high minors all the way to Chicago. He belted a home run in his first major-league at bat and had won a starting spot in the Cubs outfield the following spring.

Brock batted .263 as a rookie and .258 his second season, but was suffering an identity crisis: While some in the organization saw a top-of-the-order run creator, others saw him as middle-of-the-order thumper.

On June 17, 1962, the Cubs faced the New York Mets at the Polo Grounds (which never host a polo match) in Upper Manhattan. The outfield dimensions there were crazy: 279-feet to left field and 258 to right, with the walls angled outward so dramatically that they met in center field at an almost unreachable 483 feet. It was in that cavernous no-man’s land where Willie Mays corralled Vic Wertz’s 430-foot smash with an over-the-shoulder basket catch in the 1954 World Series.

In 52 years, no major league player had cleared the wall there with a home run. Facing the Mets’ Al Jackson in the first inning, Brock became the first with a two-run shot. Ironically, Hank Aaron became the second to do it on the very next day. Milwaukee’s Joe Adcock was the third and last.

But such feats of power were fleeting for Brock, who hit just nine home runs in each the 1962 and ‘63 seasons. Already impatient with the 25-year-old outfielder and in a lurch with their starting rotation, the Cubs traded Brock to St. Louis for Ernie Broglio on June 15, 1964.

The trade — known today as the best the Cardinals ever made — was widely panned at first because Broglio had been an 18-game winner just the season before and a 21-game winner a couple years before that.

But Cardinals manager Johnny Keane was popular in his clubhouse because he let his players play, just like his successor Red Schoendienst. Both would give him the green light to steal when he saw an opportunity. In 103 games, Brock swiped 33 bags in addition to batting .348 with 81 runs scored. The Redbirds rallied in the last two weeks of the season to overcome Philadelphia for the National League flag.

“I guess that fewer than 2 percent of the people in baseball thought it was a good trade for us,” Cardinals captain Ken Boyer said. “When Lou Brock was added to our club, he ignited us to the pennant.”

Brock ignited a seven-game upset of the New York Yankees in the World Series, too, with two doubles and a home run among his nine hits. He also scored two runs and drove home five. It was the Cardinals’ first glimpse of what a historical postseason performer Brock would be. In 21 games over three World Series, the left hander would bat .391 with 34 hits, seven doubles, two triples, four home runs, 13 RBIs, 16 runs scored and 14 stolen bases.

In the meantime, Brock was off and running in his pursuit of baseball history — literally. Playing under Schoendienst, he stole 63 bases in 1965, second only to the Dodgers’ Maury Wills. With 74 in 1966, Brock kicked off a streak in which he would lead the National League in eight of the next nine seasons.

But Brock always bristled at the notion he was a one-trick pony, insisting he was as much a hitter as he was a base burglar.

In 1967, which brought the Cardinals their second World Series Championship in four years, he batted. 299/.327/.472 and scored 113 runs. The power game returned, too, in his career-best 21 home runs and 76 RBIs. His five home runs in the season’s first four games, in fact, were a record that has since been matched only by Barry Bonds and Chris Shelton, formerly of the Detroit Tigers.

St. Louis blew a 3-1 series lead over the Tigers in 1968, but Brock was once again spectacular in the limelight. He went 13-for-28 with six runs scored, five driven in and seven stolen bases. He finished sixth in MVP balloting that year.

Even as the Cardinals fluttered into the 1970s, Brock kept on running. In 1974, when he was 35 years old, management encouraged him to make a run at Wills’ modern record of 104 stolen bases in a season.

Back in 1964, Brock had taken note that Wills kept a written journal to track the tendencies of National League pitchers, their pickoff moves and their delivery times from mound to plate. He even had the audacity to ask the Dodgers’ outfielder to share his intelligence. Naturally, Brock was rebuffed in the request, but it inspired him to purchase an 8mm camera to film the pitchers instead. Those home movies came in handy.

With the Philadelphia Phillies at Busch Stadium II on Sept. 10, Brock collected a first-inning single and stole second base to tie Wills’ record. He singled again in the seventh inning and — with a full-house on its feet and singing “Loooooou …” — swiped second for the record.

Brock finished with 118 steals to go with a .306/.368/.381 slash line, 105 runs and a somewhat disappointing second-place finish to the Dodgers’ Steve Garvey for MVP.

He would never lead the league again, though he stole 56 the next year and 56 more the year after that — when he was 37 years old. His 938 career total surpassed Ty Cobb for the record and still stands as second all-time.

A 19-year career was capped in fantastic fashion in 1979 when Brock batted .304 in 120 games. He put the exclamation point on his claim as a complete player when he ricocheted career hit No. 3,000 off Cubs pitcher Dennis Lamp on Aug. 13. Brock was the 14th big leaguer and first math teacher to reach that milestone.

“The will to make it happen is what separates the thoroughbred from the donkey,” he would tell the New York Times. “A player may be on a collision course with mental anguish, pain, inability to play. You want to crown your career with performance, and 3,000 hits is a star in the crown.”

Brock was a first-ballot inductee to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985.

SEASONS IN ST. LOUIS: 1964-1979

KEY STATS

.297/.347/.414 in St. Louis | 6x All-Star | 2 WS rings |3k hit club | 25.9 WAR | HoF’85

TOP 100 SCORE: 4.78

This story was originally published March 22, 2019 at 5:00 AM.