We enter the "lost zone" of hitting when we turn our attention to the triple, increasingly orphaned as baseball continues to devolve into a variant of Home Run Derby.
(The old--and we do mean old--TV series that faced off a series of early 60s sluggers, such as the somewhat unlikely duel here between the immortal Willie Mays and the journeyman Jim Lemon, has turned out to be all-too-prescient in showing us the way to the last five years, the Age of Launched Juice--or is that Juiced Launch? It likely matters not...)
Of course, there was a time in baseball when triples were the most significant measure of power for a hitter. That period, which began at the dawn of the game and managed to continue for a few precious years after the advent of Babe Ruth, has produced a subset of Hall of Fame players who continue to move farther away from the average with every game played. (Even as the opposite, of course, is happening with the home run.)
But enough acidulous past-as-prologue, already. You're here to see another spiffy chart, and who can blame you? So sans ado (adieu?), here are triples as rendered via (avec?) "alphabet soup"...
Just as there used to be only one hitter with 700+ HRs, there still is only one man (Sam Crawford) with 300+ triples. And it is likely to stay that way until (or unless) Hell freezes over.
As is now the custom for our displays, we show you the names of players who are not in the Hall of Fame in red ink. Which leads to the question--who is the hitter with the most triples who is not enshrined in Cooperstown?
The answer: Ed Konetchy, with 182 triples and in need of a ticket to enter through the front door at the Hall. Hot on his heels is Harry Stovey, with 176, and with a list of statistical accomplishments beyond his robust triples totals strongly suggesting that he deserves enshrinement. Then there's Tommy Leach (172), a third baseman-outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates during their early powerhouse days in the 1900-12 time frame, who batted at or near the top of the lineup and was a notch or two above journeyman.
And then there's Joe Jackson (169)--who would doubtless have gone over the 200 mark save for a certain obscure incident.
He's followed by Sherry Magee (166), with a Hall of Fame case about as strong as Stovey; Jake Daubert (165), who hit 22 triples at the age of 38, the most ever at that age (beating out Honus Wagner); Bill Dahlen (163), maybe the most deserving 19th-century player not yet in the Hall; Mike Tiernan (162), whose career petered out dramatically after reaching the age of 30; and George Van Haltren (161), one of the late nineteenth century's best leadoff men. Finally, there's Jimmy Ryan (158), another fine outfielder in the 1880s-90s who might deserve a plaque in Cooperstown for feuding with the execrable Cap Anson.
And in case you were wondering, we left the Babe off the list, in hopes that some of you would wonder where he was...since he hit 136 triples in his career (a total that certainly could provoke disbelief).
We will let you discover the players closer to own time who are on this list...
