Former Los Angeles Dodgers Executive Fresco Thompson is credited with saying that Willie Mays’ glove was where “triples go to die.”\u00c2\u00a0 Variations of the same quote have been attributed to other sources, talking about other players including Joe Jackson and Tris Speaker.\u00c2\u00a0 Mays hasn’t played since 1973.\u00c2\u00a0 Speaker last played in 1928 and Jackson’s last major league game was 1920.\u00c2\u00a0 Triples have also largely been relegated to history.\u00c2\u00a0 Triples still die but now they mostly die in foul territory or as home runs.<\/p>\n
Major league baseball’s career leader in triples is Sam Crawford with 309.\u00c2\u00a0 Mr. Crawford played for the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers and called it a career after the 1917 season.\u00c2\u00a0 Ty Cobb is second on the triples list with 295.\u00c2\u00a0 The “Georgia Peach” retired in 1928.\u00c2\u00a0 Honus Wagner is third on the career triples list, with 252 three-baggers and he hasn’t played since 1917.<\/p>\n
Of baseball’s all-time top ten leaders in triples none played later than 1928.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the top 50 triples hitters none played later than 1972.\u00c2\u00a0 The only top-50 triples-hitter to be in the big leagues that year was Roberto Clemente, and he’s one of only three in the top 50 to have played after 1940, joining Stan Musial, who retired in 1963 and Paul Waner, who last played in 1945.\u00c2\u00a0 Clemente, tied for 27th, had 166 career triples at the time of his death in a plane crash after the 1972 season.\u00c2\u00a0 Clemente was 38 when he died and likely had a few good seasons left in him but it’s doubtful he would have moved up the triples list significantly.<\/p>\n
To find a player as recent as the 1990\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, you have to go down to 56th on the list to Willie Wilson, the Kansas City Royals All-Star, who hit 147 triples in a career that ended in 1994.\u00c2\u00a0 Wilson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s teammate, George Brett, is the next player to have played as recently as the 1990\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, as he retired in 1993 with 137 triples, leaving him in 70th place.<\/p>\n
Among active major league baseball players, only one ranks in the top 150 for career triples and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Carl Crawford who hit 13 this year, tops in the American League and second most in baseball to Colorado\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Dexter Fowler who wears the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153triple crown\u00e2\u20ac\u009d with 14.\u00c2\u00a0 Crawford\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 13 three-baggers this season have him at 105 for his career, which ties him for 140th<\/sup> all-time.\u00c2\u00a0 Among other active big leaguers, 36-year-old Johnny Damon sits tied for 158th<\/sup> place all-time with 100 triples and then there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 31-year-old Jimmy Rollins who has rounded second and dove for third, safely, 98 times in his career.\u00c2\u00a0 After Crawford, Damon and Rollins no other current baseball player is in the all-time top 200.<\/p>\n Damon hit five triples in 2010 and Rollins hit three, his lowest total ever for a complete season.\u00c2\u00a0 Neither, it seems, has many double-digit triple seasons left in him.\u00c2\u00a0 The speedy, 29-year-old Crawford has averaged about 12 triples per full season during his nine big league campaigns.\u00c2\u00a0 If he maintains that pace for the next decade he’ll crack the all-time top ten.\u00c2\u00a0 But how likely is that?<\/p>\n Of the top 100 men on the career triples list, 55 are in the Hall of Fame, including all of the top 14 and 38 of the top 50.\u00c2\u00a0 Among those not in the Hall is Shoeless Joe Jackson who was banned from the game and subsequent Hall of Fame eligibility at age 32 because of his role in throwing the 1919 World Series.\u00c2\u00a0 Jackson, like Speaker and Cobb, both stole triples in the field as well as hit them at the plate, slugging 168 career triples, good for 26th on the list, two ahead of Clemente.<\/p>\n Chief Wilson holds the major league record for triples in a season, legging out 36 of them for the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1912.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the ten most prolific seasons for a triples-hitter none has happened since 1925.\u00c2\u00a0 Curtis Granderson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 23 triples for the Detroit Tigers in 2007 tie him for 22nd in a single season and might be baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most remarkable offensive achievement in recent memory as no one had hit that many in a single year since Dale Mitchell of the Cleveland Indians in 1949.<\/p>\n Major Leaguers still hit a lot of doubles.\u00c2\u00a0 Tris Speaker still holds the career record of 792, a mark that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s held for 82 years now.\u00c2\u00a0 In second place is Pete Rose who hit the last of his 746 doubles in 1986.\u00c2\u00a0 Fifth place on the doubles list though is Craig Biggio who hit 668 of them before he retired in 2007.\u00c2\u00a0 George Brett is next on the list with 665 and the top 25 all-time is littered with recent players including Paul Molitor, Cal Ripken, Barry Bonds, Luis Gonzalez, Robin Yount, Jeff Kent, Ivan Rodriguez and Tony Gwynn.<\/p>\n The song is largely the same for the singles list, with Rose leading the way this time with 3,215 followed by Cobb with 3,053. But cracking the top ten are Gwynn and Molitor, though among active players only 43-year-old Omar Vizquel reaches the top 30 with 2,200.\u00c2\u00a0 Next among actives is Derek Jeter clocking in at a tie for 24th with 2,163 singles.<\/p>\n Baseball\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s career home run leader is Barry Bonds who hit 762 through 2007.\u00c2\u00a0 Ken Griffey, Jr., who is walking off into the Seattle sunset, sits in fifth with place with 630 homers, just ahead of the still-going Alex Rodriguez with 613.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the top 20 home run hitters in major league history only two, Babe Ruth and Jimmie Foxx, finished their careers before 1950.\u00c2\u00a0 Six of the top ten all-time home run hitters played in the 2000\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcs and nine of the top 20 did.<\/p>\n Are a lot of the recent home runs really would-be triples that just got lucky?<\/p>\n The National League averaged 0.93 home runs per game in 2010, the lowest average since 1997.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, of the top ten homer-per-game seasons in the NL nine have happened since 1999, the one very notable exception being 1955.\u00c2\u00a0 In 1878 almost no one hit homers in the NL, as only 0.06 were hit per game.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the ten lowest home run per game seasons in the NL, all happened in 1909 or earlier.\u00c2\u00a0 The American League again follows suit.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the AL\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s top ten home runs per game seasons all have been since 1987, nine of them since 1994 and five of them in the 2000\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.\u00c2\u00a0 It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the 21st<\/sup> century and we love the longball, not the drama off the wall.<\/p>\n Triples hitters are rare but what about triples as a whole?\u00c2\u00a0 Are the same number being hit but just spread out among more players?\u00c2\u00a0 Nope.\u00c2\u00a0 In 2010, the National League averaged 0.19 triples per game, tied for the second-lowest total of any year that statistics are available for since 1876, higher only than 2008 and 2009.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the ten years with lowest triples per game in the National League all have occurred since 1996.\u00c2\u00a0 One-hundred and sixteen years ago, in 1894, the NL was at its triple craziest with 0.81 per game.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the top ten triple-heavy per game seasons in the National League nine occurred before 1900.\u00c2\u00a0 The tenth was 1912.<\/p>\n The American League tells nearly the same story.\u00c2\u00a0 Of the ten lowest triple-per-game years, all have occurred since 1972.\u00c2\u00a0 The A.L. only hit 0.16 triples per game in 2010, its lowest ever, edging out 2009 and 2006.\u00c2\u00a0 They used to leg \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcem out a lot better in the early days of the AL.\u00c2\u00a0 The junior circuit\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s first year, 1901, was its best for triples with 0.63 per game.\u00c2\u00a0 The top ten best seasons for American League triples all occurred in 1930 or earlier.\u00c2\u00a0 Eight of them were before 1920.<\/p>\n George Foster, who slugged 348 career home runs including 52 in his 1977 MVP season with the Cincinnati Reds, is credited with a poignant quote the following year about what he was best at:<\/p>\n I don’t know why people like the home run so much.\u00c2\u00a0 A home run is over as soon as it starts…. The triple is the most exciting play of the game. A triple is like meeting a woman who excites you, spending the evening talking and getting more excited, then taking her home.\u00c2\u00a0 It drags on and on.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re never sure how it’s going to turn out.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/em><\/p>\n <\/em>Foster spoke amorously about triples but he was a prude when it came to hitting them as he banged out only 47 of his career.\u00c2\u00a0 Ironically, perhaps, in his final season, 1986 with the White Sox, his triples, two, doubled his number of home runs, one.<\/p>\n Perhaps instead of triples dying in the gloves of speedy outfielders they are instead now home runs and foul balls.\u00c2\u00a0 In the 1910\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s and 20\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the average major league ballpark was 345 feet down the left field line, 318 feet down the right field line and 453 feet to dead center field.\u00c2\u00a0 Today, ballparks average about 331 feet down the left foul line, 329 feet to right and just under 405 feet to straightaway center.\u00c2\u00a0 Many of those heart-pounding triples of yesteryear are no longer bouncing off the wall but sailing over it.\u00c2\u00a0 And those line-drives into the gap in the olden times are now falling in as singles or doubles or into the bigger glove of bigger, faster outfielders.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at photographs of baseball players in the 1910\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s, 20\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s or 30\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s.\u00c2\u00a0 Their gloves are tiny things that barely cover their hands.\u00c2\u00a0 In the early 20th<\/sup> century baseball gloves were about 10 ounces.\u00c2\u00a0 Now, they average about 24 ounces.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more glove to end that triples love.<\/p>\n Do we need bigger ballparks, smaller gloves and less-skilled pitchers?\u00c2\u00a0 I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know.\u00c2\u00a0 But the game does need more triples.\u00c2\u00a0 Imagine football without kick returns and basketball without the slam-dunk.\u00c2\u00a0 We need triples.\u00c2\u00a0 We need that guy pushing off second and going for broke.\u00c2\u00a0 We need that pregnant moment when he dives for third as the ball screams in and we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know if he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to be safe or foolish.\u00c2\u00a0 We need ball players not to die at third, but to be gunned down trying to get there.\u00c2\u00a0 That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s livin\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Former Los Angeles Dodgers Executive Fresco Thompson is credited with saying that Willie Mays’ glove was where “triples go to die.”\u00c2\u00a0 Variations of the same quote have been attributed to other sources, talking about other players including Joe Jackson and Tris Speaker.\u00c2\u00a0 Mays hasn’t played since 1973.\u00c2\u00a0 Speaker last played in 1928 and Jackson’s last […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":768,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-statistical-analysis"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/768"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8554"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8554\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seamheads.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}