Both Crawford and Cobb had the one attribute that is absolutely required to rack up lots of triples on a consistent basis: blazing speed.

In addition to all their triples, Crawford stole 367 bases, while Cobb recorded 897 steals.

Take a look at the top 20 leaders in career triples, and you’ll see much of the same:

Other than Waner and Musial, every other player on this list stole at least 200 bases during his career. Musial didn’t even crack 80, but you can’t put Stan the Man in the same sort of boxes reserved for mere mortals.

You might also notice that Musial and Waner share something else in common — they’re the only two on this list to play as late as the 1940s. Heck, some of the others barely made it out of the 19th century as active players!

These guys were the epitome of the Deadball Era, when runs were at a great premium before Babe Ruth revolutionized the power game in the 1920s. Even more so than with the list of career doubles leaders, this rundown of the greatest triples hitters ever gives us a glimpse into a completely different era of the game.

You have to scroll all the way down to number 27, where Roberto Clemente shows up with 166 triples, to find a player who was still on the diamond in the 1970s. Move that bar to the 2000s, and we fall to Steve Finley, tied for 94th with 124 triples.

So, will we ever see another hitter break the top 100 again?

“Ever” is a long time, but as of the end of 2023, the active career leader is Charlie Blackmon, who ended the season at age 37 with 63 triples. Suffice it to say that the next 300-triple man is probably not yet even a twinkle in anyone’s eye.

While not as celebrated as home runs, doubles are one of baseball’s most valuable types of hits. And hitting doubles is a skill that goes beyond just tying into the ball with all your might.

Deadball Supremacy

Speaker played from 1907 through 1928, with the majority of those years before Babe Ruth killed the so-called Deadball Era with his home run exploits for the New York Yankees in the 1920s.

Before Ruth made everyone dig the long ball, home runs were hard to come by. To wit, Speaker himself led the American League with 10 homers in 1912 for the Boston Red Sox. By the time he hit a career-high 17 for the Cleveland Indians in 1923, though, that total was only good enough to tie him for fourth place in the A.L. with Joe Hauser of the Philadelphia Athletics.

That same season, Speaker led all of baseball with 59 doubles, a total which still ranks tied for seventh on the single-season list.

Speaker had the perfect blend of hitting skills for tagging doubles on a consistent basis. He had enough power to lead the league in home runs (at least before The Bambino came along!), but he also flashed plenty of speed on the basepaths. In fact, Speaker topped out at 22 triples in 1913 and 52 stolen bases in 1912.

The Land of Power and Speed

Speaker’s blend of power and speed is the blueprint for a doubles machine, but there have been players who excelled at just one of those aspects of the game and still collected plenty of doubles.

Albert Pujols, for example, slugged 703 home runs in his career but was about as fast on the bases as a bullpen cart with no battery. But all that power helped Prince Albert collect 686 doubles despite his lack of speed.

On the other hand, you won’t find any pure speedsters on the list of the top doubles men of all-time unless they also packed a punch with their swing. Cobb himself is the exemplar for that type of doubles hitter, of course, but a more modern example is Craig Biggio.

The Houston Astros legend and Cooperstown denizen stole 414 bases in his career, but he also banged 291 long balls. Is it any wonder he was able to crank out 668 doubles among his 3060 hits?

Reserved for Legends

Speaking of Cooperstown, the list of career leaders in doubles is no place for scrubs. Among the all-time top 20, only Rose, Pujols, Adrian Beltre, Miguel Cabrera, Barry Bonds, Luis Gonzalez, and Todd Helton are not in the Hall of Fame.

Rose and Bonds, of course, have their own troubles with the Cooperstown electorate that have nothing to do with their numbers.

Pujols, Beltre, Cabrera, and Helton will all end up with plaques.

That leaves only Gonzalez as a non-Hall of Famer on merit alone, and he’s not that far off if you look at his record.

Here is the full top-20 list of players with the most doubles in Major League Baseball history:

The most common type of double play is the 6-4-3 DP, which happens when a batter hits the ball on the ground between second and third base with a runner on first. In that case, the shortstop fields the grounder and throws to second base to force out the lead runner, who is coming from first. Then the second baseman throws the ball to first to force out the batter.

A similar play occurs when the third baseman makes the initial grab and throws to second (a 5-4-3 double play). If there are runners on both first and second, a double play can start with a forceout at third. Likewise, if the bases are loaded, a double play might start with a forceout at home plate.

In any case, a GIDP is one of the worst outcomes for a batter as it not only results in two outs, but it also removes a base runner who was already in play. Talk about a rally killer!

Oftentimes, fast runners can beat out the back end of a double play at first base, but slower runners who hit an infield grounder are usually toast.

As proof of this, the single-season leader in GIDP is Boston Red Sox slugger and Hall of Famer Jim Rice, who grounded into 36 DPs in 1984. He followed that up with 35 GIDPs in 100 fewer plate appearances in 1985. Not surprisingly, Rice had only 58 stolen bases in his career and was caught 34 times.

Rice finished his career with 315 GIDP, tied with Eddie Murray for eighth place on the all-time list. The top spot belongs to Albert Pujols, with 426 GIDPs.

Here is the complete list of the 10 batters with the most GIDPs in their careers:

• Albert Pujols – 426 GIDP
• Miguel Cabrera – 364 GIDP
• Cal Ripken, Jr. – 350 GIDP
• Ivan Rodriguez – 337 GIDP
• Hank Aaron – 328 GIDP
• Carl Yastrzemski – 323 GIDP
• Dave Winfield – 319 GIDP
• Eddie Murray – 315 GIDP
• Jim Rice – 315 GIDP
• Julio Franco – 312 GIDP

Something you might notice about this list is just how accomplished the players are. Among the top 10, seven are in the Hall of Fame as of 2023, two more — Pujols and Cabrera — will be in Cooperstown as soon as they’re eligible, and Franco had a long and accomplished career.

So, although a GIDP is a negative thing for a batter, only the very best stick around long enough to land on this “bad” list.

R – Runs

The blocks labeled by inning numbers on the scoreboard keep track of the runs each team scores in their half of each inning. So, if the visiting team scores two runs in the top of the first inning, that block on the scoreboard shows a “2,” as in the image above.

The “R” column keeps track of the total runs scored by each team during the course of the game.

In the example above, the visitors scored two runs in the top of the first, none in the second, and one in the top of the third, for a total of three runs.

Meanwhile, the home team didn’t score in the first but did score one run in the bottom of the second inning. So, heading to the bottom of the third, the “R” column on the right-hand side shows a cumulative score of 3-1 in favor of the visitors.

H – Hits

Each hit that a team collects during the course of a baseball game is reflected in the “H” column of the scoreboard as the game progresses. Unlike runs, hit tallies are not shown for each inning, but just for the overall game. So, in the example above, the visiting team has collected five hits and the home team has collected two hits as the game heads to the bottom of the third inning.

E- Errors

As with hits, the baseball scoreboard shows the total number of errors that a team has committed as the game progresses, this time in the “E” column at the far right-hand side. In the example above, the home team has committed one error, while the visitors have committed none, through the top of the third inning.

Errors are the only defensive metric shown on the scoreboard, and they’re the only negative shown, too. That one error shown in the example above occurred while the visiting team was batting and helped them out, but it’s recorded — and shown — against the home team.

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Did You Know? The record for the most errors in a game by a single player is held by Andy Leonard, who committed 9 gaffes in a game for the Boston Reds in 1876.

In fact, the average height among 1494 players who appeared in the majors in 2022 was nearly 6’2″ — six feet, one-and-three-quarters inches.

By comparison, Healthline.com reports that the average adult male in the United States stands just 5’9″. That means the average ballplayer is nearly 5 inches taller than the man on the street. Not up to NBA standards by any means, but baseball players tend to be tall drinks of water when compared to most “normal” folks.

That’s not always the case, though, as some of the greatest players in history checked in with more average heights:

• Joe Morgan, 5’7″
• Ivan Rodriguez, 5’9″
• Mel Ott, 5’9″
• Phil Rizzuto, 5’6″
• Roy Campanella, 5’9″
• Wee Willie Keeler, 5’4″

There are plenty of others, but all of those guys are Hall of Famers. They were among the best of the best to ever step foot on a major league diamond, despite their diminutive stature.

And, even though Keeler was tiny, he wasn’t the shortest MLB player ever. That honor goes to Eddie Gaedel, who stood just 3’7″ and collected one plate appearance for the St. Louis Browns on August 19, 1951. He walked on four straight pitches from Detroit Tigers starter Bob Cain in what amounted to a publicity stunt to draw more fans by Browns owner Bill Veeck.

At the other end of the spectrum, Sean Hjelle and Jon Rauch both stand 6’11”, locking them in a tie for the title of tallest major league player ever.

The idea of having a runner in scoring position means that a runner is in position to score if the batter at the plate collects a single. Depending on where the ball drops, it’s almost certain that a man on third base can score on a base hit. Often, a man on second base can also score on a single, particularly if it lands in deep(ish) right field.

So a runner is considered to be in scoring position if he is on either second or third base with a batter at the plate.

The performance of a batter or team when there are runners in scoring position is sometimes used as a proxy for how “clutch” their hitting is. Does a batter have a much higher batting average when he comes to the plate with RISP as opposed to when the bases are empty or there’s just a runner on first? Then maybe he’s a clutch hitter.

The number of plate appearances that a team has with runners in scoring position is also a sort of very loose measure of either their non-home-run power, their on-base and base running abilities, or a combination of those attributes.

A team who leads the league in plate appearances with RISP, for example, puts a lot of runners at second and third for the batters coming up behind them. That’s usually accomplished through a combination of getting on base, flashing some extra-base power (and speed), and running aggressively and smartly to take extra bases when they’re available.

All in all, RISP — or runners in scoring position — is a useful concept that will help you get more out of your baseball viewing and will give you a better understanding of the game and why players and managers make the decisions they do.

Did you know? The great Ted Williams, who hit .344 over the course of his career, hit “only” .328 with runners in scoring position?

As you can see from the list of the top 20 base stealers of all time below, Henderson is head and shoulders above all other speedsters in major league history:

Wills is noteworthy for his amazing performance in 1962, when he stole 104 bases for the Los Angeles Dodgers and won the National League Most Valuable Player (MVP) award for his efforts. That SB mark eclipsed Cobb’s record of 96 steals, set in 1915.

A dozen years after Wills’ record-setting performance, Brock set a new single-season mark with 118 steals in 1974. Three years later, Brock broke Cobb’s modern-day career record.

Brock’s records were short-lived, with Henderson swiping 130 bases in 1982 to grab the single-season crown. Less than nine years later, on May 1, 1991, Henderson set the career mark with his 939th stolen base. He would go on to play another 12+ seasons, last appearing in the majors in 2003.

Along the way, Henderson tagged on another 467 stolen bases — a number that on its own would be 48th on the all-time list of steals!

Specificaly, slugging percentage is defined as the number of bases a hitter produces per at-bat and is calculated by dividing a player’s total bases by his number of at-bats:

slugging percentage = total bases/# of at-bats

In turn, the number of total bases is defined as:

total bases = (# of singles) + 2*(# of doubles) + 3*(# of triples) + 4*(# of home runs)

So then the full formula for calculating slugging percentage becomes:

slugging percentage = ((# of singles) + 2*(# of doubles) + 3*(# of triples) + 4*(# of home runs))/(# of at-bats)

As an example, consider a hitter who collects 100 singles, 25 double, 4 triples, and 10 home runs in 600 at-bats. The total bases he produced would be:

total bases = 100 (singles) + 2*25 (doubles) + 3*4 (triples) + 4*10 (home runs)
total bases = 100 + 50 + 12 + 40 
total bases = 202

This batter’s slugging percentatge would be:

slugging percentage = 202 total bases/600 at-bats
slugging percentage = 202/600
slugging percentage = .337

So this hypothetical batter has a .337 slugging percentage. For context, the average Major League Baseball player slugged at a .414 rate in 2023, which makes this batter subpar when it comes to SLG.