Jim Brock, the Arizona State baseball coach who turned an interim assignment as a fill-in with a championship team into a 23-year career as one of the nation's most successful college coaches, died Sunday night at Desert Samaritan Hospital in Mesa, Ariz. He was 57.

An Arizona State spokesman said the cause of death was liver and colon cancer, the disease Brock had been fighting for 11 months, most spectacularly during the early rounds of this year's College World Series in Omaha.

Until he was forced to return to the hospital before last Tuesday's game against Miami, the only concession Brock made to the disease was to install a plastic lawn chair in the dugout. The empty chair was there when the Sun Devils beat the Hurricanes, 9-5, for Brock's 1,100th victory, a plateau only six other coaches have ever reached. Eighth Among Active Coaches

A 6-1 loss to Oklahoma, the tournament's eventual winner, on Thursday, brought his record to 1,100-440, a .714 winning percentage that is the 16th highest among all coaches and eighth among those active last season.

For Brock, a native of Phoenix and a 1958 graduate of Arizona State, his career was largely an accident.

Brock, who had coached Mesa Community College to back-to-back national junior college championships, was working on a doctorate in educational administration at Arizona State in 1971. That happened to be the year when Bobby Winkles, who had pioneered in the Sun Devil baseball program, winning three national titles in 13 years, left after the season to become a coach for the California Angels.

Unable to find an experienced Division I coach with sufficient stature to take Winkles's place, the athletic director, Fred Miller, hired Brock as a temporary replacement while he continued his search. Twelve World Series

After Brock steered the team to a 64-6 record and second place in the College World Series in 1972, he had all the Division I stature he needed.

Over the next decades his teams made 12 more trips to the College World Series, finishing second three other times and winning the championship twice, in 1977 and 1981. Those titles made Brock the only coach to have won national championships with American Legion, junior college and major college teams.

As the coach of one of the most successful college teams, Brock had an edge in recruiting top high school talent. He sent an average of more than seven players a year into the professional ranks, among them Barry Bonds, Bob Horner and Mike Devereaux. Wife Passed Him News

Brock, who set an Arizona State record with 65 victories in 1976 (65-10), had his only losing season (31-35) in 1985, a year after the school was stripped of 14 baseball scholarships because of irregularities in a work-study program.

Brock was in the hospital when his team lost on Thursday, finishing in a third-place tie, but after his wife relayed the news to him, he issued a statement for the Sun Devil players who had worn his No. 33 taped to their caps.

"It was a wonderful season," he said.

He is survived by his wife, Pat; a daughter, Cathi, and a son, Jim Jr.

J L Brock