RetroSimba

Lou Brock and Carl Yastrzemski, catalysts for their teams in the 1967 World Series, were linked again 12 years later as all-stars.

Forty years ago, on July 17, 1979, Brock, 40, played in an All-Star Game for the last time. He and Yastrzemski, who turned 40 a month later, were the oldest position players among the 1979 all-stars.

In his one at-bat in the game, Brock’s hard groundball against Nolan Ryan of the Angels bounced high on the artificial surface of Seattle’s Kingdome and over the head of Yastrzemski, the American League first baseman, for a single.

Yastrzemski was accustomed to seeing Brock reach base. In the 1967 World Series, won by the Cardinals against the Red Sox in seven games, Brock and Yastrzemski were the left fielders and excelled at the plate. Brock batted .414 with 12 hits, eight runs scored and seven stolen bases for the Cardinals. Yastrzemski batted .400 with 10 hits, including three home runs, and four walks.

Force at 40

After batting .221 for the Cardinals in 1978, Brock said the 1979 season would be his last as a player. Based on his 1978 performance, Brock wasn’t among the outfielders on the ballot for fan voting to select the 1979 National League all-stars.

“The pallbearers stepped out last year,” Brock said to the Fort Lauderdale News. “They had the coffin and the nails in, too.”

Brock returned to form in 1979, hitting .314 in April and .433 in May, and got the most write-in votes of any National League all-star candidate. At the all-star break, Brock was batting .322 and was within 27 hits of reaching 3,000.

National League manager Tommy Lasorda of the Dodgers selected Brock as a reserve outfielder.

“Lou Brock has been an inspiration to everyone in baseball,” Lasorda said to Fort Lauderdale News columnist Bernie Lincicome. “This is our way of saying thanks for all the years you’ve given baseball.”

Yastrzemski and Red Sox teammates Fred Lynn and Jim Rice were voted by the fans to be the starting outfielders for the American League, but Yastrzemski had a strained right Achilles tendon, so manager Bob Lemon moved him to first base, replacing injured starter Rod Carew of the Angels, and put the Angels’ Don Baylor in the outfield with Lynn and Rice.

Mets first baseman Ed Kranepool told the Los Angeles Times he admired Brock and Yastrzemski for working to stay in playing shape.

“The body is obviously the key to longevity,” said Kranepool, “but mental outlook is the key to conditioning.”

At an all-star banquet the night before the game, Brock said, “We’re not here to live history, but to make history,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.

Signs of respect

Lasorda gave Brock the honor of presenting the National League lineup card to the umpires at home plate before the game.

After the National League scored twice in the first on a RBI-triple by the Phillies’ Mike Schmidt and a RBI-double by the Reds’ George Foster against Ryan, the American League countered with three in the bottom half of the inning on Baylor’s RBI-double and Lynn’s two-run home run against the Phillies’ Steve Carlton.

In the second, with one out and Bob Boone of the Phillies on first, Carlton was due to bat. Lasorda again honored Brock by selecting him to be the first pinch-hitter of the game. Stepping to the plate for Carlton, his former Cardinals teammate, Brock came through with the single.

(In regular-season games versus Ryan in his career, Brock produced a .516 on-base percentage, with five hits, 11 walks and a sacrifice fly in 31 plate appearances, according to baseball-reference.com.)

Boone stopped at second rather than advance to third on Brock’s hit to right. NBC broadcaster and three-time all-star Tony Kubek credited shortstop Roy Smalley of the Twins and second baseman Frank White of the Royals with “decoying Boone into thinking the ball was coming back to the infield quickly,” the Associated Press reported.

After an infield hit by the Dodgers’ Davey Lopes loaded the bases, Boone scored from third on a sacrifice fly by the Pirates’ Dave Parker. Steve Garvey of the Dodgers popped out to Yastrzemski, ending the inning and finishing Brock’s stint. Video of Brock at 1:00.15 mark

The hit gave Brock, a six-time all-star, a career .375 batting average in the five All-Star Games he played.

Bygone era

Another National League reserve outfielder, the Mets’ Lee Mazzilli, led off the eighth with a home run against the Rangers’ Jim Kern, tying the score at 6-6. In the bottom half, the Angels’ Brian Downing tried to score from second on a single to right by Graig Nettles of the Yankees, but was nailed at the plate by a rocket throw from Parker to Expos catcher Gary Carter.

In the ninth, the Yankees’ Ron Guidry walked Mazzilli with the bases loaded, and the National League got its eighth consecutive all-star victory, winning 7-6. Boxscore

“I’m glad I was a part of it,” Brock said to United Press International. “It’s going to be a little hard to watch all this on television next July.”

As he packed his uniform, Brock told the Fort Lauderdale News, “Just as one knows when to start something, one should know when to end it. I recognize the time has come for me.

“I’m probably the last link to an era, an era that relates to tradition,” said Brock. “Pete Rose, Carl Yastrzemski, we go way back, back to an attitude that is not present today. We’re the last products of ‘you get what you paid for,’ and not ‘you get paid for what you might do.’ “