Lou Brock

Lou Brock, the St. Louis Cardinals’ Hall of Fame outfielder who in a career spanning two decades became the greatest base-stealer the major leagues had ever known when he eclipsed the single-season and career records for steals, died on Sunday September 6 2020. He was 81. Dick Zitzmann, Brock’s agent, confirmed the death to The Associated Press, but did not provide any details. Brock began receiving treatment for multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer, in 2017. His left leg was amputated in 2015 as a result of a diabetes-related infection. On June 15, 1964, a floundering Cardinals team traded one of the National League’s leading pitchers for an outfielder who had failed to live up to his promise. That deal, sending the right-hander Ernie Broglio to the Chicago Cubs for Brock as the centerpiece of a six-player swap, became one of the most one-sided trades in baseball history. Brock helped take St. Louis to the 1964 World Series championship and went on to turn around games year after year with his feet and his bat. Louis Clark Brock was born on June 18, 1939, in El Dorado, Ark., and grew up in Collinston, La., in a family of sharecroppers who picked cotton. Brock never played organized baseball. Instead of a ball and bat, he swatted rocks with tree branches. But he received an academic scholarship to Southern University in Baton Rouge, La., and played baseball there, catching the attention of Buck O’Neil, the longtime Negro leagues player and manager, who was scouting for the Cubs. Brock’s survivors include his third wife, Jacqueline, a special-education teacher whom he married in 1996; his son, Lou Jr., and his daughter, Wanda, from his first marriage, to Katie Hay; three stepchildren; and two granddaughters. His first two marriages ended in divorce.