RetroSimba

(Updated Feb. 17, 2022)

Seventeen years after he left Chicago as a player, Lou Brock returned as a broadcaster.

Brock, who transformed from an underachiever to a Hall of Famer after his trade from the Cubs to the Cardinals in 1964, joined the White Sox as a television analyst in 1981.

Brock, 42, was paired with broadcaster Harry Caray to call games for a White Sox team managed by Tony La Russa.

In seeking a role that would keep him involved in baseball two years after he had retired as a Cardinals player, Brock discovered that being a White Sox broadcaster wasn’t right for him.

Idea develops

After playing his last game for the Cardinals in 1979, Brock got involved in several business ventures, including a role doing promotional, marketing and sales work for Anheuser-Busch.

Brock also tried broadcasting. In 1980, he briefly was an analyst on national games for ABC-TV. He also did occasional Cardinals games.

In spring 1981, while in Chicago to present an award to White Sox outfielder Ron LeFlore, Brock met Eddie Einhorn, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Einhorn and Jerry Reinsdorf, co-owners of the White Sox, had plans to launch a subscription-based televised sports service in Chicago and were on the lookout for former professional players with broadcasting talent. Einhorn talked with Brock about working White Sox games.

“I listened to some tapes he did for the St. Louis Cardinals and I was impressed,” Einhorn said.

Reinsdorf added, “When we hit on the idea of Brock, I thought it was sensational.”

At that time, Anheuser-Busch was a sponsor of televised White Sox games. According to columnist Dick Young in The Sporting News, “Anheuser-Busch, feeling pressure from Old Style beer in that area, got up the dough for (Brock) to join the ChiSox air crew.”

Softer approach

On June 20, while the 1981 season was on hold because of a players strike, the White Sox announced Brock would join their broadcast team when play resumed.

“We feel very fortunate,” Einhorn told the Associated Press. “We said we had been planning to enlarge our announcing team and this seemed a good time to do it.”

Said Reinsdorf: “I didn’t want to get caught short on announcers. We started looking for someone with stature and credibility. Brock has both.”

Brock’s hiring broke up the White Sox’s television broadcast team of Caray and Jimmy Piersall. The White Sox said Piersall would move to the radio side and work with Joe McConnell.

Caray and Piersall were popular and controversial. Both were critical of La Russa, irritating the manager. Though Einhorn and Reinsdorf denied Brock’s hiring was intended to change the tenor of the telecasts, many thought otherwise.

“It’s obvious why they’re doing it,” wrote Ron Maly of the Des Moines Register. “They’re tired of hearing Caray and Piersall bombard the Sox manager and players with criticism.”

In his book “The Truth Hurts,” Piersall said, “La Russa went to Einhorn and Reinsdorf and told them that the problem with the White Sox … was the announcers, Harry and myself.

“La Russa had Reinsdorf wrapped around his little finger … If La Russa was as good a baseball man as he was a politician, the White Sox would have been a lot better for it. I understood that in early 1981.”

Regarding Piersall, La Russa later told The Sporting News, “He’s an entertainer. He’s not a baseball man.”

Cardinals reunion

Caray had been the voice of the Cardinals when St. Louis acquired Brock in June 1964. As Brock sparked the Cardinals to three National League pennants (1964, 1967 and 1968) and two World Series titles (1964 and 1967), Caray described the speedster’s exploits to the club’s vast audience. To the White Sox owners, pairing them seemed natural.

“He’s a good friend,” Caray said of Brock. “He is an intelligent, articulate man. There’s no way I can object to a Lou Brock in the booth.”

Brock told the Chicago Sun-Times he looked forward to partnering with Caray “because I can learn an awful lot working with him.”

“I’ve always had a good rapport with Harry,” Brock said. “He’s one of the best and most knowledgeable play-by-play men in the country.”

Bad reviews

When the players’ strike ended in August 1981, viewers tuned in to discover the tandem of Caray and Brock was not what they wanted. They missed Piersall’s brashness and the playful exchanges he had with Caray. Brock was measured in his remarks.

“If he were any good, he’d still be behind the mike for the Cardinals, right?” Maly said of Brock in the Des Moines Register.

Ron Alridge, Chicago Tribune TV-radio critic, called Brock “inexperienced and inarticulate.”

Said Caray: “Poor Lou Brock. I feel sorry for him … I just don’t think people are buying Brock.”

Feeling like an outsider on the announcing crew, Brock told Rick Hummel of the Post-Dispatch, “I’m the fifth wheel out of four.”

After the 1981 season, the White Sox broadcast team got a shakeup. Caray left and joined the crosstown Cubs. Piersall was fired. The club was “disappointed” in Brock’s performance, the Chicago Tribune reported.

For 1982, the White Sox went with a revamped broadcast team of Don Drysdale and Ken “Hawk” Harrelson on television and McConnell and Early Wynn on radio.

With the exception of a few appearances on Cardinals telecasts through 1984, Brock’s broadcasting career basically was finished.

Previously: How Harry Caray survived near-fatal car accident

Previously: Cubs knew Lou Brock was on verge of stardom in 1964