It was ostensibly a swap of starting shortstops, with the Phillies getting the younger (by eight years) and faster DeJesus and compensating for the difference by throwing in Sandberg, at Cubs GM Dallas Green's insistence.

I can think of three trades that the Cubs made that either counterbalance or exceed the ultimate lopsidedness of Brock-for-Broglio. Al mentioned one: On April 21, 1966, the Phillies traded a 24-year-old reliever named Ferguson Jenkins, along with 1B/OF John Herrnstein and outfielder Adolfo Phillips, to the Cubs for veteran righthanders Larry Jackson and Bob Buhl. Jackson had three fair seasons for the Phillies as an every-fourth-day starter, going 41-45, before arm trouble forced him to retire after the '68 season. Buhl was rocked in '66 to the tune of a 4.77 ERA, and retired shortly after the '67 season began.

Herrnstein never amounted to anything, and the Cubs dealt him to the Braves a month later. But Adolfo Phillips would be the starting centerfielder for the Cubs for three years ... and Fergie Jenkins would go on to a Hall of Fame career that included 167 wins in a Cubs uniform and six straight years as a 20-game winner for the Cubs.

The second trade would be the DeJesus-for-Bowa-and-Sandberg trade ... and thank God that Cubs GM Dallas Green insisted upon having the Phillies throw in Sandberg as the third player in that deal. The idea was that Philadelphia had to counterbalance the fact that, in what was ostensibly a swap of starting shortstops, the Cubs were getting a shortstop who was eight years older (and not nearly as fast in the field or on the bases) than his counterpart.

However, even in terms of Bowa and DeJesus, the deal worked to the advantage of the Cubs; DeJesus would start for three years as the Phillies' SS, batting .239, .254, and .257 and doing a subpar job in the field (and never stealing more than 16 bases, even though he had been one of the most feared basestealers in the NL as a Cub) before they shipped him off to St. Louis as a throw-in in the Bill Campbell deal. Bowa lasted longer as a Cub than DeJesus did as a Phillie, and posted roughly equal numbers to DeJesus, before the emergence of Shawon Dunston made him expendable and the Cubs cut him in August of '85.

And that's without taking Sandberg into consideration.

Third, the Bell-for-Sosa-and-Patterson trade. Never mind the fact that the Cubs got a guy who would go on to hit 500+ homers for them in exchange for a guy who would have one mediocre season and one bad season as a White Sock before he left baseball to go pump gas back home in the Dominican Republic -- the White Sox even threw in another player, lefty reliever Ken Patterson, as part of the deal! Talk about adding insult to injury!

I understand the mythology that has grown around Brock-for-Broglio over the years. It's a hallowed part of the woe-is-us lore of Cubs Nation. But, looking at it honestly, the Cubs have done better at taking future Hall of Famers from other teams than they have at giving them up to others (you can add Hack Wilson, KiKi Cuyler, and Rogers Hornsby to that list of Cubs HOFers acquired via trade as well). If you told any objective baseball observer that his team could have either Lou Brock or the trio of Fergie Jenkins, Ryne Sandberg, and Sammy Sosa as a part of their team's trading history, I think they'd take the latter three any day of the week.