Lou Brock was the rock that helped make me a Cardinal fan for life

This is a sad day for this baseball fan, one of many baseball fans everywhere, and the St. Louis Cardinals family.

Earlier this week, we lost a baseball legend in Tom Seaver.

Now, we have lost another baseball legend in Lou Brock, who has passed away at the age of 81.

Though he was born in El Dorado, Arkansas as one of nine children, Brock has deep Louisiana ties, having attended Union High, growing up Mer Rouge and Collinston, northeast of Monroe, before playing at Southern University.

Brock did not play baseball until he was 13 and he was a pitcher in high school.

After hitting just .189 in his first year with the Jaguars, Brock exploded, batting .500 in his second season. A star was born.

With Brock as its star in his junior season, Southern won the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics baseball championship.

Brock was chosen to participate for the United States team in the 1959 Pan American Games.

After signing with Chicago Cubs as a free agent in 1960, it would not take Lou long to get to Chicago.

Brock won the Northern League basting title in 1961, hitting .361 for St. Cloud with 14 home runs, 82 RBI and 38 stolen bases.

It was the shape of things to come.

Brock earned a September call-up to Chicago with that brilliant season.

He would never wear a minor league uniform again.

Brock played 19 seasons in the major leagues.

While he was solid with the Cubs, in the middle of his fourth season, Brock was traded to the Rival St. Louis Cardinals for pitcher Ernie Broglio in what would go down as one of the best or worst trades in baseball history, depending on which team you pulled for. Broglio won just seven games for Chicago in part of three seasons.

Brock would thrive in St. Louis as the Cardinals turned him loose.

After moving into a cavernous new ballpark in downtown St. Louis in 1965, the Cardinals had to take a different approach, heavily concentrating on speed, led by Brock.

He became the best, the greatest base stealer of his era, of all-time, until Rickey Henderson came along and broke his records.

Brock played in six All-Star games and it could have been more.

He joined the exclusive 3,000 hit club, finishing his tremendous career with 3,023 hits, still 28th all-time. He led the National League in runs scored twice, led the league doubles and in triples once each and led the league in stolen bases eight times.

Brock hit over .300 nine times in an era dominated by pitching with the elevated mound. He set a single-season record for stolen bases with 118 in 1974 and is second all-time in stolen bases in major league history with 938. Brock stole 50 bases in 12 straight seasons, a feat no one has matched.

On top of that, Brock was a brilliant outfielder with speed, who played left field as well as anyone in his era.

Brock was a clutch performer as well, an integral part of World Series championship teams in 1964 and 1967 and on a World Series team in 1968. Brock won the Babe Ruth Award for being the outstanding player in the 1967 World Series.

In 21 World Series games, Brock batted. .391 with seven doubles, two triples, four home runs 13 RBI and 14 stolen bases.

To put that in perspective, the .391 average is the highest for any player ever to play in 20 World Series games.

Brock was elected to the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1985. Of course, he is in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame, St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Fame, the Arkansas Hall of Fame, the Missouri Hall of Fame and is on the St. Louis Walk of Fame. Brock also received the Jackie Robinson Lifetime Achievement Award in 2012.

Brock did some network baseball broadcasting and was always around the Cardinals, in some capacity, in the years after he retired after the 1979 season, frequently serving as a spring training instructor for the Cardinals and making many appearances at Cardinal games.

He even became an entrepreneur.

Brock developed the “BrockaBrella,” an umbrella which fit on your head. I made sure I got one of those back in the day!

The Cardinals had a BrockaBrella giveaway day at Busch Stadium in 2010. Brock served as owner/CEO of Brock World in St. Louis.

A man of deep faith, Brock and his wife, Jackie, were both ordained ministers at Abundant Life Fellowship Church in St. Louis.

Brock had struggled with various health ailments in recent years.

His left leg was amputated below the knee in October of 2015 due to an infection related to a diabetic condition.

In 2017, Brock was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer.

As a child, I became enamored of baseball.

We did not have a big-league team in New Orleans, of course.

I discovered that I could listen to St. Louis Cardinals baseball on KMOX, 1120 AM, a 50,000 watt clear-channel station.

I started doing that in 1967, when the Cardinals would win a World Series, largely due to the efforts of Lou Brock and Bob Gibson.

Listening to Harry Caray and Jack Buck was a thrill for this child. As it turned out, they were an inspiration to Brock, who, when he was growing up, could pick the games on KMOX as well.

Buck became my broadcast hero, a man I listened to and tried, like to many others, to emulate in my younger broadcast career.

When former Cardinal and St. Louis native Mike Shannon joined Buck after Caray’s departure in 1969, it was every bit as enjoyable as Shannon was a Cardinal hero as well. I would regularly eat at Mike Shannon’s Restaurant until it closed, unfortunately, a few years ago.

Then, when I saw the famous “birds on the bat” uniform of the Redbirds, I became hooked. It is still the best uniform in baseball, if not all of professional sports, in my biased mind.

The brilliance of Brock and knowing that he was a product of Louisiana helped make a St. Louis Cardinals fan for life, along with the intimidating brilliance of Gibson on the mound.

My testimony to that devotion was visible as I was able to get a Cardinals jersey with the No. 20 in 1977, my tribute to Brock, a true hero to me. I also purchased his book in the 1970’s, which I still have, titled, “Stealing Is My Game.”

Later, I got a No. 1 jersey in 1984 for Ozzie Smith and that one still survives to this day in my closet.

Given the chance, I would have gotten a Stan Musial and a Ted Simmons jersey as well in recognition of my other favorite Cardinals prior to Albert Pujols and my friend Lance Berkman, who was there for a short time but made a huge contribution.

Musial was the greatest Cardinal ever but he retired after the 1963 season, when I was too young to appreciate who he was or what he had done. Still, when I met Musial at his restaurant, Stan Musial and Biggie’s in 1979, it was one of the great pleasures of my life.

Stan was The Man.

He stopped and talked to us for 10-15 minutes like we were his good friends. All that was missing was him playing his harmonica.

The Cardinal Way is talked about frequently.

It has obviously been successful, witnessed by 11 World Series championships, second only to the staggering 27 titles accumulated by the New York Yankees.

That success was epitomized by Lou Brock as well as anyone who has ever worn the birds on the bat.

Brock was a great player. He was a great ambassador for the sport. He was a great man of faith. He was a hero of mine and so many others. He was largely responsible for making me a Cardinal fan.

The “Base Burglar” is gone but not forgotten.