RetroSimba

(Updated June 23, 2017)

On the misplay that cost him his perfect fielding streak, Curt Flood gave errors to teammate Lou Brock and the official scorer, but his opinions didn’t count.

Instead, it was Flood who was deemed to have erred on a routine play that ended a stretch of record-setting perfection.

From September 1965 to June 1967, Flood, the Cardinals’ center fielder, flawlessly handled 555 chances and established a National League record for successive errorless games at 226.

On June 4, 1967, Flood’s streak was intact when the Cubs faced the Cardinals at St. Louis.

In the fifth inning, with the score tied at 2-2, Cubs pitcher Rich Nye led off and hit a routine fly to left-center field. According to The Sporting News, “Brock got under the ball and was virtually stationary when Flood moved over.”

Brock, the left fielder, and Flood both called for the ball. As the ball descended, both outfielders again called out, informing the other he would make the catch, the Associated Press reported.

Neither outfielder yielded. As Brock and Flood both reached for the ball, they bumped elbows and shoulders. The ball “bounced in and out of Brock’s glove” and fell to the ground, The Sporting News reported.

Nye reached second base safely on the misplay, moved to third on Don Kessinger’s sacrifice bunt and scored on a Glenn Beckert sacrifice fly, giving Chicago a 3-2 lead.

The official scorer, Neal Russo of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, charged Flood with an error because “Brock easily would have caught the ball if Flood had not bumped him,” The Sporting News reported.

Flood, described by the Associated Press as “upset and disappointed” at being charged with the error, said Brock should have backed away. Flood implied Russo should have given the error to Brock.

“The center fielder is supposed to go after every ball he can get to,” Flood said to the Associated Press. “If he calls, the other player is supposed to leave it.”

Flood told The Sporting News, “The center fielder is the captain of the outfield and is supposed to get every ball (he calls).”

Russo said it was “difficult to see the streak end short of an out-and-out error of physical commission.” But, he said to The Sporting News, “in my judgment, based on many similar plays that I have scored and seen scored, the error belonged to Flood.”

(The error was the first for Flood since Sept. 2, 1965, when the Cubs’ Harvey Kuenn singled and advanced to second after Flood mishandled the ball.)

Flood and Brock used their bats in helping the Cardinals rally from the deficit created by their misplay.

In the sixth, Julian Javier singled, moved to third on Flood’s single and scored the tying run on Orlando Cepeda’s sacrifice fly. The Cardinals broke the tie in the eighth. Brock’s single scored Dave Ricketts from second base and St. Louis won, 4-3. Boxscore

In 2013, another Cardinals center fielder, Jon Jay, broke Flood’s mark. Jay’s errorless streak reached 245 games before he made an error on July 30, 2013, against the Pirates in Pittsburgh. Fielding a single, Jay fumbled the ball, allowing the runner to advance to second. Before that, his last error was Aug. 24, 2011.