One of the “fastest men to ever run the bases” and a “True Class Act”:Baseball’s Lou Brock(St. Louis Cardinals), gone at age 81

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Coming from MLB.com CLICK HERE to read all about one of baseball’s greatest players of all time, Lou Brock….If you had a baseball glove with Lou Brock’s name in it as a kid, you believed you could run faster, catch more balls, and steal more bases…Lou Brock and Maury Wills, were stealing the base-paths blind, long before Ricky Henderson, Vince Coleman, Tim Raines, Ozzie Smith, Otis Nixon, Tony Womack and others burst upon the scene….

**********RIP Lou Brock, gone at age 81**********

HOFer Brock, former steals king, dies at 81
from Anne Rogers, at MLB.com…..

ST. LOUIS — He was known for his speed and the pressure he put on his opponents when he was on base, but Lou Brock was much more than a stolen-base specialist. He was a daring leadoff man, a complete player and a clutch hitter. He was gentle, driven, universally admired and respected by his peers.

And the Hall of Famer will always be remembered as a Cardinals legend. Brock died on Sunday at the age of 81. The Cardinals and Cubs, Brock’s first team, played each other in Chicago on Sunday night and held a collective moment of silence for Brock before the game.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred issued the following statement after Brock’s passing.

“On behalf of Major League Baseball, I send my condolences to the family and friends of Hall of Famer Lou Brock, as well as the loyal fans of the St. Louis Cardinals. Lou was among the game’s most exciting players, becoming the 14th player in history to reach 3,000 hits and holding Baseball’s all-time record for stolen bases in a season and career for many years. He was known for his dominant performances in his three career World Series. Lou was an outstanding representative of our National Pastime and he will be deeply missed.”

“Lou Brock was one of the most revered members of the St. Louis Cardinals organization and one of the very best to ever wear the Birds on the Bat,” Cardinals principal owner and CEO William O. DeWitt Jr. said in a statement. “Lou was a Hall of Fame player, a great coach, an insightful broadcaster and a wonderful mentor to countless generations of Cardinals players, coaches and members of the front office. He was an ambassador of the game around the country and a fan favorite who connected with millions of baseball fans across multiple generations. He will be deeply missed and forever remembered.”

Brock came to St. Louis on June 15, 1964, when the Cardinals traded one-time 20-game winner Ernie Broglio and two others to the Cubs for a package of three players that included Brock. Today, it’s viewed as one of the more lopsided deals in history. But not at the time. After two full Major League seasons, Brock was a .258 hitter and an outfielder who had struggled with Wrigley Field’s right-field sun.

But still — Brock’s speed couldn’t be ignored. The Cardinals were familiar with Brock; in fact, they tried to sign him out of Southern University in 1960. They believed he was one of the fastest players in the Majors and one who would fit in well with St. Louis.

“Brock was a player, both [manager Johnny] Keane and [Cardinals executive Eddie] Stanky felt, who might blossom on the Cardinals, a far more aggressive team on the basepaths than the Cubs,” David Halberstam wrote in “October 1964,” his book paralleling the fortunes of the Cardinals and Yankees, that year’s World Series participants. “The Cardinals did not play for the big inning, they fought and scratched for one run at a time. They not only ran more often than the Cubs, they tended to use the hit-and-run and other plays that used speed on the bases to pressure the opposition.”

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