Oct. 5, 1964 - Funny thing about Lou Brock.
Cardinals manager Johnny Keane circles June 15 — the day the young outfielder was acquired from the Cubs — as the beginning of a pennant for the Cardinals. But Lou didn’t think he was welcome.
“When I joined this club,” Brock disclosed today, “I got the feeling everybody on it was looking at me and saying, ‘How the heck can a .250 hitter help this club? I looked at their faces and saw it. And it gave me the initiative, the boost I needed.”
Brock finished with 200 hits and a team-leading .315 average. Only Curt Flood had more hits, 211.
Brock, who marked his 25th birthday three days after joining the Cards, was batting .251 when Bing Devine, then general manager, sent pitchers Ernie Broglio and Bobby Shantz and outfielder Doug Clemens to the Cubs for Brock and pitchers Paul Toth and Jack Spring.
Only Brock remained with the Redbirds, and welcomed or not, he made himself right at home.
As a Cardinal, Brock batted .348, drove in 35 runs as the No. 2 man in the order, and stole 33 bases. Twelve of his 14 homers were for the Redbirds.
“He’s done everything for us,” said shortstop Dick Groat. “You couldn’t ask for any more. But he’s right — when he joined the club, we wondered how he could help. After all, we gave up a couple of pitchers and an outfielder, and Broglio was a starter who had won 18 games for us last year. On top of that, Ernie was a friend. You never like to see a friend get traded. And what did we get? The pitchers couldn’t help us, and Brock was, as he said, batting .250 and no great fielder.”
Brock, a right fielder with Chicago, was shifted to left by Keane after one game at his old position with the Cards. “He put the outfield together for us,” said Keane.
Catcher Tim McCarver, now in his second full season with St. Louis, pointed out that Brock “helped us right away. Why, he had two hits the first game he played for us.”
Pitcher Bob Gibson conceded, however, that “the trade did open our eyes a little. We were a little surprised.”
“I don’t know how he got the idea we didn’t want him,” said first baseman Bill White. “But if that’s the way he felt, it doesn’t matter whether he was right or wrong.”
“Me? I don’t think much about trades. I’m a traded ballplayer myself,” added White, who came to the Cards from the Giants in 1959 in return for Sam Jones. “How can I judge another trade? I thought it was a bad trade for the Cardinals when I came to this club. I was a .250 hitter then, too.”
“If Brock felt that way and played that way because of it,” White concluded, “I just hope he goes right on feeling that way.”
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