Top 106 Baseball Players: #66 - Lou Brock

Lou Brock

Lou Brock is one of the few players in history who could be considered as the best baserunner in history, and his performance when he reached the World Series was otherworldly, making him an easy choice for this list.

Brock started his career with the Chicago Cubs, but partway through his third season with the club, he was traded away to the rival St. Louis Cardinals, where he would play the remainder of his career. When he arrived in St. Louis, they were in 8th place in the NL, but they would rally to win the NL pennant and reach the World Series.

He was solid in his first World Series appearance, batting .300 with 5 RBI in a 7-game win over the Yankees, who were in the World Series for the 14th time in 16 years. It would be a few years until the Cardinals would return, but Brock would be ready with an historic performance when it arrived.

In 1966 he began to hit his base-stealing prime, leading the league with 74, the first of 8 times he would lead the NL in the next 9 seasons. In 1967 he also led the league in runs scored, and the Cardinals reached the World Series. He was amazing that year, getting 12 hits for an average of .414 while stealing a record 7 bases to lead the team to another championship.

The next year he led the league in both doubles and triples in addition to steals, and the Cardinals earned a return trip to the World Series. As great as he was the year before, he was even better this time, tying the World Series record with 13 hits, and tying his own World Series record with 7 more steals, finishing with an average of .464. Unfortunately, the Cardinals blew a 3-1 lead to Detroit and lost that series.

He would not return to the postseason in his career, but he was still getting even better on the basepaths. In 1974, he broke the single-season stolen base record by swiping 118, a record that would be beaten 8 years later by Rickey Henderson. Three years later he broke Ty Cobb's career stolen base record, a record many felt would never be broken, and that record was also eclipsed by Rickey Henderson in 1991.

His career started to decline in 1975, and he even lost his starting job for a while in 1978, but he bounced back in 1979 with another All-Star season, batting .304 at 40 years old to earn the Comeback Player of the Year award. He retired after the season, making him the only player to win that award in his final season.

Brock doesn't own the regular season stolen base records anymore, but he does hold the record with 12 consecutive 50-steal seasons, along with the World Series records for hits in a series, steals in a series, and steals in a career, along with the highest batting average for any player with at least 20 Series games. He was always impressive on the bases, but he turned it up to the highest level in the World Series, and is definitely one of the greatest players of all time.