All-Time Indians: Larry Brown

While the Cleveland Browns were dominating the early NFL in the late 1950, a pair of Cleveland Browns were also helping the Indians in brothers Dick and Larry Brown. While Dick Brown was the older and the first of the pair to play for Cleveland (from 1957-1959) it was Larry Brown who was the real star, playing short stop for the Indians for almost a decade, along the way becoming one of the best short stops in team history.

Both brothers Brown were signed as amateur free agents by the Indians, Dick in 1953 and Larry in 1958. After six years in the minors including a very impressive season in AAA Jacksonville in 1963, Brown was promoted to the big leagues at the beginning of July that year. The Indians had already done some shuffling in the infield prior to Brown’s debut, shifting the powerful Woodie Held from short stop to second base at the beginning of 1963 with Jerry Kindall taking his place. When Brown came up from AAA, he was initially used as a part time second baseman, but very quickly he supplanted Kindall at short, starting there for most of the rest of the season while splitting time with Kindall.

In his rookie season, Brown hit .255 through 74 games and played a solid defense. Defense would be an important part throughout his career and Brown would ultimately finish his career with the third highest fielding percent among short stops in Indians history (.964, behind Lou Boudreau and George Strickland). With changes in equipment, conditioning and values, fielding percentages have risen in the following decades and he has since been surpassed by six others with at least 400 games played at short, but this doesn’t take away from him being one of the first great defensive short stops.

In 1964, Brown split time at second and short with the new starting short stop, Dick Howser, playing 162 games and Woodie Held still starting at second. With another talent in Max Alvis at third, there were few at bats to split among many players and each Held, Alvis, Howser and Brown played more than 105 games one way or another. In Brown’s 115 games, he batted just .230, but he did hit 12 doubles with a career high 12 home runs and 40 RBI.

Brown was used more than any other short stop in 1965 and he responded with his best career season. He batted .253 that year, his highest career mark with at least 300 at bats, again knocking in 40 with a career high 22 doubles. The next three seasons, Brown would get more opportunities, but would hit between .227 and .234 each season. While in 1966 he would split time between super utility man Chico Salmon and Pedro Gonzalez at the middle infield positions, in 1967 he became a real, full-time starter for the first time, playing in 152 games. Despite the extra at bats in both 1967 and 1968, Brown would never reach the cumulative or average numbers he did in his part time seasons early on.

Nearing the end of his prime years, at the age of 29, Brown played his final full time season for the Indians in 1969. In 132 games, including his first at third base, Brown made some significant improvements in his game, walking more than he struck out for the first time in his career and stealing more bases than he was caught for just the second time. His 48 runs scored that year was second to only 1965 and his .239 average was the best since that same great season. While Brown’s numbers may seem poor throughout compared to more recent offensive short stops, this was not only a time of poor hitting middle infielders, it was a time of almost no offense produced by the Indians. Each year from 1967 through 1969, Brown was one of the Indians top five hitters along with Alvis, Jose Cardenal and Tony Horton with little following that.

In 1970, the already light hitting short stop got even lighter, hitting just seven extra base hits in his first 72 games with no home runs. Only slightly better, Eddie Leon and Jack Heidemann took over at second and short while Brown was sold to the Oakland Athletics. After two sub-.200 seasons with the A’s, he played a short stint with Baltimore where he made the postseason for the first time ever, losing to his former team, the Oakland A’s. At 34 years old, Brown played 54 games with the Rangers in 1974, effectively ending his career.

Without an unfair comparison to more modern short stops, Brown was one of the best offensive short stops in Indians history in addition to his defensive prowess. Only Boudreau, Held, Joe Sewell, Terry Turner and Ray Chapman had better careers at the plate than Brown among Indians short stops and outside of Held, none played between 1951 and 1983, making him the second best Indians short stop in any fashion over a period longer than 30 years.