Slashing singles with stunning consistency, Curt Flood collected 12 hits in the Cardinals’ first five games of the 1968 season.
With 10 hits apiece, Rafael Furcal and David Freese this season are the first Cardinals to compile that many in the team’s first five games since Flood.
Of Flood’s 12 hits in 24 at-bats in the opening five games of 1968, nine were singles. He also had two doubles and a triple.
In the season’s third game, an 8-5 Cardinals victory over the Cubs at Chicago on April 13, Flood was 5-for-5. All of his hits were singles. Flood’s second single of the game struck starter Rich Nye on his pitching arm and forced the left-hander to leave in the third inning. Boxscore
Flood, 30, hit safely in eight consecutive at-bats over three games from April 11-14.
The center fielder compiled hits in each of the Cardinals’ first 10 games of 1968 (a .447 batting mark in that stretch). He also scored at least one run in each of those games. Flood hit safely in the last eight games of the 1967 regular season, so with hits in the first 10 games of 1968, his hitting streak reached 18.
Flood’s streak was stopped on April 21 when he went 0-for-3 (with a hit by pitch) against Cubs pitchers Ken Holtzman and Bill Hands in a 9-2 Cardinals victory at St. Louis. Boxscore
“In all my years with the Cardinals (since 1941), I’ve never seen two men at the top of the batting order to equal (Lou) Brock and Flood,” Stan Musial, then a Cardinals executive, said to The Sporting News in April 1968. “Between them, they’re good for about 400 hits. Brock upsets the opposition with his base-running and Flood moves him up by hitting to right field often.”
Flood batted .400 (30-for-75) for April in 1968. He finished the regular season at .301. Of his 186 hits, 160 were singles.
This season, Furcal went 10-for-23 (.435) in the first five games. He had seven singles and three doubles. Freese was 10-for-24 (.417) in five games, with eight singles and two home runs. (Freese added two more hits, including a home run, in the sixth game).
Previously: Should Curt Flood have caught Jim Northrup’s drive?
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