Adam's Home on the Dial

The Triple Double

by Adam J. Ulrey

Power and Speed make up Unusual Triple Crown

One of the most exciting plays in baseball is watching someone run the bases for a triple after lacing one into the gap or down the line. In today's game, however, the triple has almost vanished in favor of the long ball. Teams seem to build their teams for three-run homers instead of the combination of speed and power. I wanted to look at a rare feat that has only been accomplished by 292 players in the history of this game and that is double figures in doubles, triples and home runs in the same season. This has become very rare since 1990, but in the last two years there are a few players who are bringing this particular Triple Crown back. Since 1901 there have been 9,118 opening day starters, including the years they added the DH, and only 292 players have achieved the "triple double." That is only 3% of the eligible players. This particular Triple Crown has been done 530 times since 1901. The following table will show how many times this has been done in each decade:

1901-1909	14
1910-1919	32
1920-1929	115
1930-1939	130
1940-1949	58
1950-1959	44
1960-1969	60
1970-1979	35
1980-1989	30
1990-1999	19
2000-2001	10

As you can see from the table this feat was more prevalent in the '20s and '30s when teams were built for speed and the parks were much bigger than today's band boxes. The ball of today is wrapped tighter than in the early days of baseball. Today with smaller parks and bigger and stronger players the game has changed into a power game. The last really good team that relied on speed was the St. Louis Cardinals of the early '80s, who took advantage of artificial turf. The Yankees of the past six years were built on pitching and defense, but still had anywhere from as many as 6 to 8 players every year with more than 10 homers. This particular triple crown was only done 19 times in the '90s, but already in the first two years of the 21st century this has been done 10 times.

There were a ton of interesting numbers that came out of this study. Such as who has done it the most? I would think of somebody like Willie Mays or Roberto Clemente. In the early years I would have thought it would be Rogers Hornsby, Eddie Collins or even Frank "Home Run" Baker. It was actually the great Lou Gehrig who achieved this feat 9 times in his career. In 1927 in fact he had 117 extra base hits, the second most to Babe Ruth's 119 in 1921. The Babe did it 4 times in his career, but it's some of the players that did it 8 times that caught my eye. It's no surprise that Joe DiMaggio was one of them, but he also had the best ratio, having done it 8 in just 13 years. In the 1930's there were three players who did it 8 times. Jim Bottomley of the Cardinals, Earl Averill of the Indians and Goose Goslin of the Senators and Cardinals. Goslin did most of his damage in the late 20's. Averill, Goslin and Gehrig also accomplished it the most consecutive years at 7 each. Stan "The Man" Musial also is part of the group that was able to achieve this 8 times in his career. The late Roberto Clemente did it 7 times for the Pirates, along with Joe Medwick of the Cardinals and the Dodgers. The following players did it 6 times and this is a great group of players: Enos Slaughter (Cardinals), Al Simmons (Phil. Athletics), Babe Herman (Brooklyn Dodgers) and one of the great Detroit Tigers of all time, Harry Heilmann. There were four players who achieved it five times, with Willie Mays of the Giants leading the way followed by Vada Pinson of the Reds, Gus Suhr of the Pirates and Rogers Hornsby.

As you can tell from the table there was a little bit of resurgence during the '60s. This was in part due to five players. Clemente did it 6 times, followed by Pinson's 5 and Dick Allen, Johnny Callison and Lou Brock all achieved this 4 times. So out of the 60 times that this was done in the '60s these five did it 23 times. In the following two decades, the '70s and '80s, it was only done 65 times. Home run king Hammerin' Hank Aaron had some wheels earlier in his career and was able to achieve this feat 3 times himself.

Joe DiMaggio is the only player to have accomplished this in three different decades, the '30s, '40s and the '50s. Bruce Campbell is the only player to have done it for three different teams: the St. Louis Browns, Cleveland Indians and the Detroit Tigers. There were five players who have done this by getting at least 20 doubles, triples and homers, which is truly special. Frank "Wildfire" Shulte of the 1911Cubs, Jim Bottomley in 1928 for the Cardinals, Jeff Heath of the 1941 Indians, Willie Mays for the Giants in 1957 and the most recent, the Royals' George Brett in 1979. The 1930 Dodgers were the only team with four players to do it in the same year. These players were Del Bissonette, Babe Herman, Johnny Frederick and Glen Wright. On eleven different occasions there have been three teammates on the same team who achieved this feat.

Some of the players who achieved the "Extra Base Triple Crown" might surprise you. One of them was the big first basemen of the Tigers, Hank Greenberg. Not only did he do it once, he actually did it twice. In 1935 he had 46-16-36 and in 1937 49-14-40; over 100 extra base hits each year. I could see if he just barely got 10 or 11 triples, but he went out in '35 and hit 16 triples. Considering how big he was those numbers are astonishing. The late Lyman Bostock, who was murdered at the age of 28, accomplished this the year before he died.

Harold Baines, who many people might not realize had very good speed before all the knee injuries turned him into a DH, accomplished it once. Two big strong third basemen each achieved it once. One's a Hall of Famer and the other should be. Mike Schmidt of the 500-homer club did it in 1977 and in 1964 the Cubs' Ron Santo hit 13 triples to join this elite fraternity. One of the slowest players I can ever remember, Keith Hernandez, did it back in 1979 with the St. Louis Cardinals by getting both 11 triples and homers.

Then there were some players whose names you may not have heard of that achieved this feat. Gino Cimoli of the 1962 Kansas City Athletics, Lou Clinton of the '62 Red Sox; Adam Comorosky of the 1930 Pirates; Dick Hoblitzel of the 1911 Reds; Darrell Porter, a catcher with the 1979 Royals; and Moose Solters of the 1937 Indians. I love to watch extra base hits, but especially enjoy those players who combine both power and speed.

Adam's
Expos Diary

Hi, I'm Adam J. Ulrey, I am co-host of the number #1 Sportstalk show in Eugene, Oregon on 1120 KPNW. I do a lot of color analysis for High School football games, Hockey games and some baseball. I have been married for 15 years to a beautiful lady named Jhody and have one son name Camran who just made his first Babe Ruth team to make Dad proud. I also have a little girl who barks a lot and we call her Montana, a beautiful Lab and Pit Bull mix. I root hard for the Dodgers and Indians. I hate the DH, Artificial Turf and players who don't hustle.