#Shortstops: Base for a Record

Maury Wills set the Modern Era record for most stolen bases in a single season on Sept. 23, 1962, 47 years after Ty Cobb set the record of 96 steals in 1915. Wills went on to finish the season with 104 stolen bases.

This record was eclipsed 12 seasons later by Lou Brock when he stole his 105th base on Sept. 10, 1974. The second base bag that he stole to claim the record is now preserved in Cooperstown.

Brock was born in 1939 in Arkansas but moved to a small town in Louisiana soon after. He noticed the poor way in which Black individuals lived in the south and decided he would do anything not to live that same way. 

He discovered baseball due to a punishment given to him by a fourth-grade teacher. He had to report on the careers of players like Joe DiMaggio, Stan Musial, Don Newcombe and Jackie Robinson. When he saw how much money they made, he was determined to become a baseball player. After losing his academic scholarship at Southern University, he trained hard to receive an athletic scholarship for baseball. He was offered several contracts while in college but decided to attempt to finish school. 

He started his MLB career by accepting an offer with the Chicago Cubs in 1960, but he was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals four years later. With the Cardinals, he took his game to the next level by studying the habits of opposing pitchers. After helping the Cardinals win World Series titles in 1964 and 1967 – and hitting a combined .391 in 21 World Series games over three seasons, including the 1968 Fall Classic where the Cardinals were defeated by the Tigers – Brock had his sights set on Wills’ record in 1974, finishing with 118 steals that year during a season in which he turned 35 years old.

He finished his career with 938 career steals, which was the all-time record before Rickey Henderson surpassed the mark in 1991.

Miranda Cheatham was a 2024 Library-Giamatti Research Center intern in the Frank and Peggy Steele Internship Program for Leadership Development