Thirty-seven years ago tonight, in front of a crowd of 27,285 at Busch Stadium, Lou Brock first stole his way into the record books, tying and then breaking Maury Wills' single-season stolen base mark of 104.
Lou notched his 104th and 105th swipes of the year against Dick Ruthven and Bob Boone of the Phillies. Number 105 came in the bottom of the 7th, as the Phils were leading 6-2 on the way to an easy 8-2 victory over the Cardinals; a fairly meaningless steal in the context of the game, to be sure, but it also gave Brock 740 steals for his career, setting a new NL mark. (Max Carey had previously held the record with 738.)
The game was stopped briefly, in order to celebrate Lou's accomplishment. In a very nice touch, Negro League legend James "Cool Papa" Bell — Satchel Paige claimed Cool Papa was so fast back in the day, he could flick the bedroom light switch and be under the covers before the room got dark — was on hand to offer Lou congratulations. Negro Leaguers had only recently begun to be elected into the Hall of Fame on an equal basis as their major league counterparts (Paige was the first, in 1971), with Bell being inducted in 1974. The nattily-attired Bell presented Brock with the base he had just stolen, joking, "We decided to give him his 105th base, because if we didn't, he was going to steal it, anyway."
Lou did try to make it a hat-trick in the bottom of the ninth, after reaching first on an error by Larry Bowa, but Boone managed to cut him down — one of a league-leading 33 times that Lou was caught in '74. No matter; he'd still manage to steal 13 more bases before the season was out, finishing 1974 with a stunning total of 118, and putting him on track to break Ty Cobb's seemingly untouchable mark of 892 five years later. Despite Lou's grand larceny, the Cards lost the NL East race, coming in a game and a half short of the Pirates; Lou himself would finish second in the NL MVP voting to Steve Garvey. His flower shops in St. Louis, however, apparently did quite well...
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