Sandy Koufax played hard ball when Lou Brock opted for small ball.
In a game at Dodger Stadium, Koufax intentionally drilled Brock in the shoulder with a pitch. The Dodgers ace was miffed at Brock because in his previous at-bat he bunted for a base hit and then swiped two bases, leading to a run.
Getting plunked by a Koufax fastball was as painful as one would imagine and knocked Brock out of the Cardinals’ lineup. It also messed with his mind.
“He almost ended my career,” Brock said to the New York Daily News.
Tough to solve
Like many who faced Koufax in his prime, Brock struggled mightily against him. In 1963, Koufax fanned him seven times in 11 at-bats. The next year, when he split the season with the Cubs and Cardinals, Brock hit .143 versus Koufax.
In Brock’s autobiography, “Stealing Is My Game,” his collaborator, Franz Schulze, wrote, “No one was harder on him than the great Koufax … Sandy could turn Lou into a flopping marionette with his curve and fastball.”
Brock, who had been swinging from the heels against Koufax, decided to try a different tactic. He was determined to bunt and use his speed to reach base.
“Brock’s bunting was the only thing that threatened Koufax,” Cardinals pitcher Bob Gibson said in his autobiography, “Stranger to the Game.”
Lighting a fuse
The first time Brock got to test his new approach against Koufax came on May 26, 1965. After Julian Javier led off the game and struck out, Brock stepped in and bunted a pitch toward the mound. A flustered Koufax fielded the ball with his glove and, hurrying, shoveled it wide of first baseman Wes Parker as Brock streaked across the bag with a single.
With Curt Flood at the plate, Brock took off for second and beat catcher Jeff Torborg’s throw. Flood then bounced a grounder into the hole at shortstop. Maury Wills knocked down the ball but couldn’t make a throw. Brock held second as Flood reached first with a single.
Koufax was unhappy. The Cardinals hadn’t gotten a ball out of the infield but he was in a jam. The cleanup batter, Ken Boyer, was up next. Turning up the pressure, Brock and Flood executed a double steal.
With the runners on second and third, one out, Boyer hit a sacrifice fly to center, scoring Brock. The next batter, Dick Groat, grounded out, ending the threat, but Brock had shown the Cardinals a way to get to Koufax.
“I got under his skin by bunting back at him … Koufax couldn’t handle the bunt,” Brock said to Dick Young of the New York Daily News.
In the book “Sixty Feet, Six Inches,” Bob Gibson said, “We were helpless against Koufax until Brock figured out that he could bunt on him. Once he was on first base, he could run on him, too, because Sandy didn’t have a pickoff move.”
Koufax decided he had to do something to dissuade Brock from trying that again.
Sending a message
After the Dodgers tied the score with a run in the second against Curt Simmons, Javier led off the Cardinals’ third and flied out. Brock then came up for the first time since his electrifying performance in the opening inning.
According to author Jane Leavy in her book, “Sandy Koufax: A Lefty’s Legacy,” Koufax took aim at Brock and fired. The ball smashed hard into Brock’s shoulder blade. “So darned hard,” Torborg told Leavy, “that the ball went in and spun around in the meat for a while and then dropped.”
From his perch in the dugout, it sounded like “a thud that had a crack in it,” Cardinals outfielder Mike Shannon recalled to Leavy.
In her book, Leavy wrote, “It was the first time, the only time, Koufax threw at a batter purposefully.”
(Years later, according to Leavy, Koufax said, “I don’t regret it. I do regret that I allowed myself to get so mad.”)
Despite the hurt, Brock went to first base. Then he swiped second.
Brock struck out against Koufax in the fifth, and was replaced in left field by Carl Warwick in the bottom half of the inning.
The Cardinals won, 2-1, with Bob Uecker scoring the tie-breaking run against Koufax, but the cost was high. Brock, their catalyst, was in trouble. Boxscore
Mind over matter
X-rays taken after the game were negative, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported, and Brock traveled with the team to Houston. The next day, according to the newspaper, “he could not even lift his bruised left shoulder.”
Brock wasn’t in the lineup the next five games and the Cardinals lost all five. He came back on June 1, but “he couldn’t swing or throw as of old,” The Sporting News reported.
Brock went hitless in his first 17 at-bats after returning to the lineup. Collaborator Franz Schulze noted, “He was just suddenly scared to death of all inside pitches. So he kept retreating in the batter’s box.”
Brock told the New York Daily News, “Because of fear, I was jumping away from anything inside, expecting to be hit again. I was afraid.”
The fear of failure, though, became greater than the fear of pain. Brock forced himself not to flinch when a pitch came close. “I made myself do it,” he said to Dick Young. “I even closed my eyes and stepped into a few.”
When the base hits followed, the fear dissipated.
Brock was tested on June 16 when he was struck on the batting helmet by a pitch from the Pirates’ Frank Carpin. Brock stayed in the lineup. Boxscore
Two weeks later, another Pirates left-hander, Bob Veale, hit Brock in the right forearm with a pitch. “I’ve never been hit harder,” Brock said to the Post-Dispatch. “Veale throws even harder than Sandy Koufax.” Boxscore
The following night, back in the lineup against the Mets’ Frank Lary, Brock doubled, walked, scored a run and stole a base. Boxscore
In his autobiography, Bob Gibson noted, “Much of my reputation as a badass pitcher resulted from the fact that Lou Brock was on my side. There was no other player who irritated the other team as Brock did, and consequently no other who was knocked down quite as often. When somebody on the other team threw at Brock, I considered it my duty to throw at somebody on the other team.”
Brock was hit by pitches a career-high 10 times in 1965, but he played in 155 games, totaling 182 base hits, 107 runs scored and 63 stolen bases.
By the numbers
After being hit by the Koufax pitch in May 1965, Brock never successfully bunted for a hit against him again.
For his career, Brock batted .185 versus Koufax, with more than twice as many strikeouts (28) as hits (12).
Koufax hit batters with pitches 18 times. He plunked Frank Robinson twice. In addition to Brock, the ones Koufax nailed once were Frank Thomas, Billy Williams, Dick Stuart, Bob Aspromonte, Eddie Kasko, Jim Wynn, Denis Menke, John Bateman, Tim McCarver, Bobby Del Greco, Bobby Thomson, Elio Chacon, Bob Purkey, Merritt Ranew and Eddie O’Brien.
Koufax was hit by a pitch just once. The Cubs’ Dick Ellsworth did it in the 10th inning of a game at Dodger Stadium on May 4, 1964. With a runner on first and none out, Koufax tried to bunt with two strikes but the curveball hit him on the right foot. The next batter, Maury Wills, got the game-winning hit. Brock played right field for the Cubs that night and was hitless against Koufax. Boxscore
In 19 years in the majors, Brock was plunked 49 times. Two pitchers _ Ryne Duren and Chris Short _ both nailed him twice.
A decade later, in 1952, Miggins was in the big leagues as a rookie reserve left fielder for the Cardinals. Scully was in his third year as a Dodgers broadcaster.
Yet, the 1982 Cardinals may be the franchise’s greatest team since baseball went to a divisional alignment. Since 1969, the only Cardinals club to finish a regular season with the best record in the National League and win a World Series title was the 1982 team.
As Jim Murray of the Los Angeles Times noted, “He’s Gulliver in a baseball suit.”
