Луи Брок: Бейсбол жұлдызының өмірі мен мансабы

American baseball player (1939–2020)

Louis Clark Brock (June 18, 1939September 6, 2020) was an American professional baseball left fielder. He began his 19 year Major League Baseball (MLB) 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 on his first ballot in 1985 and was inducted into the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame in 2014. Best known for stealing bases, Brock once held the major league records for most bases stolen in a single season and in a career. He led the National League (NL) in stolen bases in eight seasons. A member of the 3,000 hit club, he 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.

Brock was born 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 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,

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. 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.

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. 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 ended Maury Wills' six year reign as the National League's stolen base champion with 74 steals. 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 (former teammate Bobby Tolan led the league in steals in 1970). 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. 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. 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. 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. The Tigers rallied from being down three games to one behind the excellent pitching of Mickey Lolich to win the series. 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, 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.

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. 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 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. Brock was named Player of the Month for the month of May 1979, when he produced a .433 batting average. On August 13, 1979, in a game against the team that traded him, the Chicago Cubs, Brock became the fourteenth Major League Baseball player to garner 3,000 hits. About 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. Brock originally said 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. Brock retired at the end of the season, having posted a .304 batting average in his last season at the age of 40.

In his 19 year major league career, Brock played in 2,616 games and accumulated 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, a .343 on base percentage, and a .410 slugging percentage. Brock's .391 World Series batting average is the highest for anyone who played over 20 series games. 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 was in turn later tied in 1986 by Marty Barrett.

Brock's left leg was amputated below the knee in October 2015, because of an infection related to a diabetic condition. Brock announced on April 13, 2017, that he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that starts in the bone marrow's plasma cells. On July 28, 2017, Brock and his wife said they had received word from Mercy Hospital's doctors that, according to their blood tests, the cancerous cells were gone. Brock said the cancer had been declining for some time. "We got reports that it was 25% gone, then 50%, then 75% gone," he said. "The doctors were absolute. [Cancer] is not there." Brock died on September 6, 2020, at the age of 81.