Former Cubs pitcher Ernie Broglio, whom the team infamously acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals for eventual Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock, died Tuesday at 83 in San Jose, California, after battling cancer, his daughter, Nancy Broglio, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Broglio tied for the National League lead in victories with the Cardinals in 1960 with 21, and he won 18 games in 1963. In June 1964, the Cardinals dealt him to the Cubs, but he was never the same pitcher.
He went 4-7 that year while dealing with arm trouble. He went 1-6 and 2-6 in the next two seasons, and 1966 was his last in the majors. Meanwhile, Brock hit .384 and stole 33 bases with the Cardinals in 1964. He broke the single-season and all-time stolen base records (later eclipsed by Rickey Henderson), collected more than 3,000 hits and won two World Series with the Cardinals before his induction into the Hall of Fame in 1985.
Broglio and Cards teammates Doug Clemens and Bobby Shantz were traded to the Cubs for Brock, Jack Spring and Paul Toth.
“At the time, the Cubs were getting an 18-game winner for a .230 hitter,” Broglio told the Sun-Times in 2000.
Broglio said that by the time of the trade, he had torn the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow and never recovered. Doctors then were about a decade from discovering “Tommy John” ligament surgery.
“They just took my ulnar nerve, pulled it over from a calcium deposit and put it back where it belonged,” Broglio said. “I had the surgery in November of 1964 and was back at spring training in February of ’65.
“It wasn’t healed, and you go through a frame of mind where you don’t know whether to cut loose or not cut loose. But you have to maintain your spot on the team. Maybe the Cubs were rushing me back to save face. Things have changed, huh?”
Broglio said then he didn’t mind the notoriety from the trade.
“Who else,” he said, “can say he was traded for a Hall of Famer?”
