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Though it is a franchise that has benefitted from hitters the likes of Stan Musial, Rogers Hornsby, Albert Pujols, Lou Brock and Enos Slaughter, the Cardinals have had only one player achieve 20 doubles, 20 triples and 20 home runs in a season: Jim Bottomley.

A left-handed batter whose stroke regularly produced highly elevated line drives, Bottomley totaled 42 doubles, 20 triples and 31 home runs in 1928, the year he earned the National League Most Valuable Player Award and helped the Cardinals win their second pennant.

Bottomley is one of seven players in the 20-20-20 club. The others are Frank Schulte (1911 Cubs), Jeff Heath (1941 Indians), Willie Mays (1957 Giants), George Brett (1979 Royals), Curtis Granderson (2007 Tigers) and Jimmy Rollins (2007 Phillies). Schulte, Mays, Granderson and Rollins also had 20 stolen bases in the seasons in which they produced 20 doubles, 20 triples and 20 home runs.

Finding his footing

In 1916, when Bottomley was 16, he quit high school in Nokomis (Ill.) and worked as a truck driver, grocery clerk, railroad clerk and blacksmith’s apprentice while also playing semipro baseball, according to the Associated Press. His father and brother were coal miners. The brother was killed in a mine accident.

“I know how hard that kind of work was on my father and how much my mother worried about it,” Bottomley later told The Sporting News. “When I went into baseball, it was a choice of making good at that or returning to the mines. It hardly was any choice at all.”

A policeman saw Bottomley hit two home runs and three triples in a local game and told Cardinals manager Branch Rickey he should give Bottomley a look. In the meantime, Bottomley wrote to Rickey and asked for a tryout. Cardinals scout Charley Barrett was sent to watch Bottomley play and was impressed.

In early fall of 1919, Bottomley, 19, was summoned to St. Louis so that Rickey could see him perform. Rickey sought prospects for the farm system he was starting to build.

Bottomley’s introduction to the big city was expensive. Unsure how to get to Robison Field, he hailed a taxi when he arrived at the bus station. The driver charged him more than $4 to go to the ballpark, according to the Brooklyn Eagle.

When Bottomley reported to the field, Rickey hardly could believe what he saw. The first baseman wore shoes half a dozen sizes too large for him. The shoes curled up at the toes and had spikes nailed to the front. The Brooklyn Eagle described them as Charlie Chaplin clown shoes. Bottomley tripped over the bag, falling on his face and then on his back.

“I told Charley Barrett this fellow could never do it because his feet were too big,” Rickey recalled to the Brooklyn newspaper, “but Barrett declared his feet were all right. It was that pair of shoes.”

In the book “The Spirit of St. Louis,” Rickey said, “Bottomley, properly shod, had the grace and reflexes of a great performer.”

The Cardinals signed Bottomley for $150 a month and arranged for him to report to the minors in 1920.

Man of the people

Bottomley gave the Cardinals a big return on their modest investment. Called up to the majors in August 1922, he became their first baseman. He hit .371 in 1923 and the next year drove in 12 runs in a game against the Dodgers. Boxscore

Using a choked grip on a heavy bat, Bottomley drove in more than 110 runs six seasons in a row (1924-29), and hit better than .300 in nine of his 11 years with the Cardinals. (In the other two years, he hit .299 and .296.)

When he was Cardinals manager, Rogers Hornsby told United Press, “I’d rather see Jim Bottomley at the plate when a run is badly needed than any other player I could name.”

Bottomley “was the best clutch hitter I ever saw,” Hall of Famer Frankie Frisch said to the New York Times.

Nicknamed Sunny Jim _ “He has a disposition that refuses to see the gray outside of the clouds of life,” Harold Burr of the Brooklyn Eagle noted _ Bottomley was a fan favorite, especially with the Knothole Gang kids and the Ladies Day crowds.

“Cap perched jauntily over his left eye, the smiling Bottomley walked with a slow swagger that was as much a trademark as his heavy hitting,” Bob Broeg of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch noted.

Bottomley was a bachelor during his playing days with the Cardinals. (In 1933, he married Betty Brawner, who operated a beauty salon in the Missouri Theater building in St. Louis.) Cardinals bachelors stayed at a hotel in the West End of St. Louis during Bottomley’s time. According to The Sporting News, “There every night you could see Jim and his cohorts seated in chairs out in front of the hotel, holding court with the fans.”

Gold standard

Of Bottomley’s 187 hits in 1928, roughly half (93) were for extra bases. His 362 total bases led the league.

Dodgers pitcher Rube Ehrhardt told the Brooklyn Eagle, “Bottomley is a great slugger … He pulls a ball to right field by a combination of strength, wrist snap and perfect timing.”

By June 1928, Bottomley had his 20th double of the season, and his 20th homer came the next month. All he needed were 20 triples to become baseball’s second 20-20-20 player. Entering September with 14 triples, Bottomley made his run for the mark.

He hit a triple at Cincinnati on Sept. 2, then got triples in three consecutive home games _ Sept. 9 versus the Pirates and Sept. 10-11 against the Reds. His 19th triple came Sept. 22 at the Polo Grounds versus the Giants.

On Sept. 29 at Boston, the Cardinals went into the next-to-last game of the season with a 94-58 record, two games ahead of the Giants (92-60). A win would clinch the pennant.

Leading off the game for the Cardinals, Taylor Douthit hit a slow roller to second. Braves player-manager Rogers Hornsby tried to scoop it, but the ball trickled between his legs and into right field for a two-base error. After a Frankie Frisch single scored Douthit, Bottomley drove a pitch from ex-Cardinals teammate Art Delaney into right-center. Eddie Brown, the center fielder, reached for it, but the ball caromed off his glove and hit the bleacher wall. Frisch scored and Bottomley streaked into third with his 20th triple. Chick Hafey followed with a sacrifice fly, scoring Bottomley, and the Cardinals went on to a 3-1 pennant-clinching win. Boxscore

For the season, Bottomley hit .325, scored 123 runs and drove in 136. He had a .402 on-base mark and a .628 slugging percentage. Bottomley batted .359 with runners in scoring position.

“Bottomley is the Lou Gehrig type _ a hustler, carefree, great in the pinches,” Yankees pitcher Waite Hoyt told North American Newspaper Alliance.

(Bottomley clouted a home run versus Hoyt in Game 1 of the 1928 World Series at Yankee Stadium. He also was credited with a triple in Game 3 at St. Louis when Yankees center fielder Cedric Durst took several steps toward the ball, then futilely tried to turn back as it sailed over his head. Boxscore)

For being named National League MVP by the Baseball Writers Association of America, league president John Heydler awarded Bottomley $1,000 in gold.

The league and the Cardinals arranged for the prize to be given before a game against the Phillies at St. Louis on June 8, 1929. Because of Bottomley’s popularity with youngsters, Cardinals owner Sam Breadon invited girls and boys of school age to attend the Saturday afternoon game for free.

A total of 12,806 youths _ 9,643 boys and 3,163 girls _ attended. “They packed the upper and lower decks of the left wing of the grandstand and overflowed into the bleachers and pavilion,” the Post-Dispatch reported. Paid attendance was 7,000, putting the total number of spectators at 19,806.

Before the game, Bottomley tossed many baseballs to youngsters in the stands. Then, in a ceremony at home plate, Heydler gave Bottomley $1,000 worth of $5 gold coins in a canvas sack.

During the game, “all available paper was made into schoolroom airplanes and sailed out into the field” by the urchins, the Post-Dispatch noted. Bottomley produced two hits, including a triple, and the Cardinals beat Phillies starter Phil Collins like a drum, winning, 7-2. Boxscore

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Imagine accomplishing a rare feat and doing it in the presence of the master of the craft. Davey Lopes knew the feeling.

On Aug. 24, 1974, Lopes had five stolen bases for the Dodgers against the Cardinals. Watching him perform was the National League’s all-time best base stealer, the Cardinals’ Lou Brock.

Lopes became the first National League player to swipe five bases in a game since Dan McGann did it for the Giants against Brooklyn on May 27, 1904. Boxscore

Though he holds the record for most career stolen bases (938) in the National League, Brock never swiped five in a game. Neither did other prominent base stealers such as Ty Cobb, Tim Raines, Vince Coleman, Max Carey, Honus Wagner and Maury Wills.

Lopes remains the only player with five steals in a game versus the Cardinals.

Tough part of town

Lopes was born and raised in East Providence, Rhode Island, a town of Irish, Portuguese and Cape Verdean immigrants who came looking for jobs in the factories and along the waterfront.

One of 12 children, Lopes was a toddler when his father died, according to the Los Angeles Times. A stepfather abandoned the family. Lopes’ mother, Mary Rose, worked as a domestic when she could.

Residing in a tenement, Lopes described the neighborhood to Times columnist Jim Murray as “roaches, rats, poor living conditions, drugs as prevalent as candy.”

“If it hadn’t been for sports, there’s no telling what I’d be or where I’d be,” Lopes said to the Times in 1973. “All I had to do is step off the porch to a choice of all the things you associate with a ghetto … It’s an easy step off the porch.”

Before he learned to steal bases in ball games, Lopes said he resorted to shoplifting. “I never stole anything major, just clothes and baseballs and bats,” he told Jim Murray.

Lopes also said to the Times, “When you don’t have money and can’t have what the other kids have, you get it any way you can. You live on the street. You steal.”

Though, as Jim Murray put it, “even by Rhode Island standards, Davey was little,” he excelled in high school baseball and basketball. Among those who admired Lopes’ play was an opposing coach, Mike Sarkesian. A son of an Armenian immigrant who worked in steel foundries, Sarkesian grew up in a Providence tenement house, but went on to graduate from the University of Rhode Island with dual degrees in biology and physical education.

In the same year Lopes graduated from high school, Sarkesian was named head basketball coach and athletic director at Iowa Wesleyan College. He recruited Lopes, offering him a college education and providing an escape from East Providence. After two years at Iowa Wesleyan, Sarkesian became athletic director at Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas. Lopes went with him, arriving shortly after a tornado left the campus in shambles.

An outfielder, Lopes did so well in baseball that he got selected by the Giants in the eighth round of the 1967 amateur draft but opted to stay in college. The Dodgers drafted him in the second round in 1968 and Lopes signed for $10,000. He gave most of the money to his mother, according to the Times.

Though he played in the minors in the summers of 1968 and 1969, Lopes skipped spring training both years so that he could complete his studies at Washburn. He graduated in 1969 with a degree in elementary education and taught sixth grade one winter.

(Lopes also got married in July 1968 but continued to contribute to the education of brothers and sisters still in school. “I try and send home as much as I can, even when it hurts my own wallet,” he told the Times in 1973.)

On the run

Lopes wanted to be a center fielder, but Tommy Lasorda, who managed him for three seasons (1970-72) in the minors, suggested his best path to the big leagues was as an infielder. Lopes learned to play second base. He was 5-foot-9 and tough. “A Billy Martin with more talent and speed,” noted San Francisco Examiner columnist Art Spander.

Leigh Montville of the Boston Globe described Lopes as “a dirty uniform ballplayer” whose “game is motion, as much motion as he can create.”

After hitting .317 with 48 stolen bases for Lasorda with Albuquerque in 1972, Lopes, 27, was called up to the Dodgers that September. The next year, he replaced Lee Lacy as the Dodgers’ second baseman and took off running, igniting the offense from the leadoff spot.

“He sets our mood,” Dodgers manager Walter Alston said to the Los Angeles Times. “I will give him a red light in certain situations, but otherwise he can run whenever he wants.”

Lopes told the newspaper, “The steals are something to talk about, but when they turn into runs, that’s what is important.”

Right conditions

The Dodgers became National League champions in 1974. Lopes’ special blend of speed and power were highlighted that August. He had four stolen bases against the Astros on Aug. 4, becoming the first Dodger since Maury Wills in 1962 to swipe that many in a game. On Aug. 20, Lopes clouted three home runs and totaled five hits versus the Cubs at Wrigley Field. Boxscore and Boxscore

Four nights later, he had his five-steal game against the Cardinals’ battery of pitcher John Curtis and catcher Ted Simmons. The Dodgers totaled a club-record eight steals in the game and won, 3-0, with Don Sutton pitching the shutout.

Lopes, who reached base on three hits, a walk and an error, swiped second three times and third twice. He also was thrown out twice by Simmons _ at third with Curtis pitching and at second with Al Hrabosky on the mound.

“All five steals were my fault,” Curtis told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I was having trouble getting the ball over the plate.”

Curtis’ teammate, Lou Brock, said to the Los Angeles Times, “His delivery is systematic and easy (for a runner) to pick up.”

Brock also told the newspaper it was a myth that left-handers, such as Curtis, were more difficult to steal against. “Even though he’s looking right at you, you’re looking right at him, too,” Brock noted. “You can pick up so many keys to run from because they’re all there in front of you. Against a right-hander, all you see is his back and rear end. He can hide his motion better.”

Elite stealers

Brock also had a stolen base, his 88th of the season, in the game, and was headed for 118, breaking Wills’ record of 104.

In remarks to the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Lopes, 29, said of Brock, 35, “The first thing about him that amazes you is how he can steal all those bases at his age. The next thing is his ability to steal with the short lead he takes. Runners such as Joe Morgan, Cesar Cedeno, Bobby Bonds and myself take leads of at least seven to eight feet. Without that, we’d never get to second on time. Brock takes only five feet, mainly because of the speed he’s able to generate in a hurry.

“He picks up all those steals while only rarely attempting to take third. The other team knows he’s going to try for second. They get ready for him, but they seldom get him.”

Regarding Lopes’ five steals versus the Cardinals, Brock said to the Los Angeles Times, “So many conditions have to be exactly right. First, it has to be something a player wants very badly. He also has to defy a lot of things such as the unwritten rule that says you shouldn’t try to steal third with two outs … Also, it’s unusual for somebody to get that many opportunities _ that is, the number of pitches to the man batting behind him (Bill Russell).” Boxscore

The record for most steals in a game by one player is seven. George Gore did it for the Cubs in 1881 and Billy Hamilton matched the feat for the Phillies in 1894.

Those with six steals in a game: Eddie Collins for the Athletics twice in 1912, Otis Nixon of the 1991 Braves, Eric Young of the 1996 Rockies and Carl Crawford of the 2009 Rays.

Rickey Henderson, career leader in steals (1,406), had five in a game for the 1989 Athletics. The only Cardinals player with five steals in a game is Lonnie Smith, who did it Sept. 4, 1982, versus the Giants. Boxscore

Decades of service

Lopes finished the 1974 season with 59 steals. The next year, he swiped 38 in a row from June to August and led the league (with 77), ending Brock’s reign of four consecutive years. Lopes was the league leader again in 1976 (with 63 steals).

One of his best seasons was 1979 when he was successful on 44 of 48 steal attempts (his 91.67 percent success rate led the league) and slugged 28 home runs. His 28th homer was a walk-off grand slam against the Cubs’ Bruce Sutter. Boxscore

Lopes also was the league leader in stolen base percentage in 1985, swiping 47 in 51 tries (92.1 percent). For his career, he had a stolen base percentage of 83 percent, better than that of Henderson (80.7), Brock (75.3) and Wills (73.8).

In four World Series with the Dodgers, Lopes had 10 stolen bases in 12 tries.

His 16 years in the majors were with the Dodgers (1972-81), Athletics (1982-84), Cubs (1984-86) and Astros (1986-87), totaling 1,671 hits and 557 steals.

Lopes also managed the Brewers (2000-02) and coached for 27 years with the Rangers (1988-91), Orioles (1992-94), Padres (1995-99 and 2003-05), Nationals (2006 and 2016-17), Phillies (2007-10) and Dodgers (2011-15).

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