The Triple Crown Award for hitting is given to a batter when he leads his league in the three major categories of home runs, runs batted in and batting average. There is also one awarded to a pitcher when he leads his league in wins, earned run average and strikeouts. However, since history has seen 36 pitchers win the honor, as opposed to only 14 batters (16 awards total), I felt that the batters who won the award deserved the time and ink for this article.
The first entry of a Triple Crown winner in documented records dates back to 1878 when Paul Hines of the Providence Grays (National League) appears as the first ballplayer to have the honor bestowed upon him. There are discrepancies here among historians and purists in the sense that he was not recognized an award winner because RBI’s were not considered as an official statistic until years later. By the way, the Buffalo Bisons were the first team to use and record RBI’s between the years of 1879 and 1885.
The last Triple Crown winner in either league was Carl Yastrzemski of the Red Sox in 1967, whereas the last pitcher to accomplish this was Jake Peavy of the Padres just this last year. So scarcity also played a role in my decision as well. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to demean the importance of it by position; it’s just that it appears that the difficulty factor is slanted against batters rather than pitchers.
It should also be noted here that in addition to the Triple Crown, there is also the Major League Triple Crown, the difference being that the winner has the best record (for all three of the categories) in both leagues. As I just mentioned above, the last winner of the Triple Crown was Carl Yastrzemski. However, the last Major League Triple Crown winner was Mickey Mantle when he led both leagues in 1956.
Since there was a field of 14 players winning the award 16 times — Rogers Hornsby won it in 1922 and 1925; Ted Williams won it in 1942 and 1947 — I had to come up with a way to decide on the eight best. Basically what I did was rank where each player’s stats fell in order of one through 16, added the ranks for each player (as whole numbers), then divided each player’s total by three to arrive at an index value. I’ll use Frank Robinson’s numbers from the 1966 season as an example. His home runs total ranked 2nd, RBI’s total ranked 11th, and his batting average was 15th. Adding 2+11+15, this equals 28; dividing by three equals an index value of 9.33. So here we go with the eight ballplayers, their teams, and the year they won the award.
#8 Ted Williams – Boston Red Sox – 1942
In 1942, Williams hit 36 HR’s, had 137 RBI’s, and batted .356 but, more incredibly, he also led the league in bases on balls (145), runs (141), total bases (338), OBP (.499), and slugging average (.648). Despite Williams’ leading in eight of the 12 hitting categories, Boston still finished second in the AL, 9.0 games behind the Yankees. Williams would repeat winning the Triple Crown again in 1946 hitting 32 HR’s, 114 RBI’s, and batting .343 after missing all three seasons from 1943 through 1945 when he served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a pilot during WWII. He would again fly in the Korean Conflict in 1952 and 1953, playing only six games in the former season and 37 games in the latter.
I’ve often speculated how much greater the man’s career numbers would have been had he not served in the Armed Forces. I did the math on this, backing out his small numbers for 1952-53 and calculated that he averaged 154 hits, 30 HR’s, and 106 RBI’s per season. Extending this out to surmise a full career that was not interrupted twice by military service, he would’ve ended his career with 3,388 hits, 660 HR’s (the same total as Willie Mays), and 2,332 RBI’s. Despite speculation, Williams was still one of the greatest pure hitters of all time.
#7 Tip O’Neill – St. Louis Browns (AA) – 1887 / Nap Lajoie – Philadelphia Athletics – 1901
Herein lays the first of two entries where a tie exists. Tip O’Neill holds the distinction of being the only American Association ballplayer to win the Triple Crown, doing so with only 14 HR’s, but 123 RBI’s, and a phenomenal .435 batting average. It’s interesting that in 1887, bases on balls were still counted as hits, however the .435 reflects his actual batting average taking his walks out of the equation. When we add the bases on balls back into the equation, it results in a tidy .492 batting average.
Right alongside O’Neill is Nap Lajoie; a ballplayer who Ty Cobb called his fiercest competitor for bragging rights in the hitting game. Lajoie’s numbers for 1901 were only 14 HR’s like O’Neill, but he had 125 RBI’s, and a .426 batting average, which was the third highest average ever for a Triple Crown winner. Their rivalry on the field climaxed at the end of the 1910 season when the Chalmers Auto Company promised a new automobile to whoever won both the batting title and MVP award that year. Cobb decided to take the final two games off, feeling fairly certain Lajoie would have to have two perfect games to win the car.
Lajoie was by far the more popular player of the two, and in his final two games the opponent St. Louis Browns allowed him to go 7 for 8 in the season-ending doubleheader. After hitting a triple and a single, the St. Louis manager ordered his third baseman to play at the edge of the outfield grass, resulting in five straight bunt singles for Lajoie. His final at bat, if he hit safely, would result in him winning the title and the automobile. But even though he bunted for a sixth time the result was that he was ruled safe on an error committed by the fielder, which left the competition between him and Cobb in a tie.
The Browns manager and one of his coaches then tried to bribe the female umpire (you heard me correctly) with a new wardrobe if she would change the ruling on the play, enabling Lajoie to win the competition for the automobile. The Browns manager and coach were subsequently fired, and Chalmers gave a new car to both Cobb and Lajoie to avoid any repercussions in the scandal. However, researchers would (ironically) discover 70 years later that one of Cobb’s games was actually counted twice in the season’s stats, thus inflating his average as well as tainting his record.
#6 Mickey Mantle – New York Yankees – 1956
As I mentioned in the beginning of the article, Mantle was the last Major League Triple Crown winner in that he had the best stats in either league. Mantle’s Triple Crown numbers included 52 HR’s (the most by any Triple Crown winner in history), 130 RBI’s, and a .353 batting average. In addition to this, he lead the league in runs scored (132), total bases (376), and slugging percentage (.705), accounting for first place in six of the twelve major offensive categories.
Mantle also won the AL MVP award in 1956 and then won it again the following year with 18 fewer HR’s, 36 fewer RBI’s, but a .365 batting average which was his career best. For me, I will always remember that patented home run swing, the 1961 HR record chase with Maris, and the boyish grin that he never lost. But then again, there will always be that sadness of knowing that had he taken better care of himself, he would have been even greater than he was.
#5 Joe Medwick – St. Louis Cardinals – 1937
Nicknamed “Ducky” by his teammates due to a distinct waddle when he walked, Medwick was a member of the famous “Gashouse Gang” of the 1930’s Cardinals, and just like Mantle, he also won the MVP award (NL) in 1937 when he won the Triple Crown with 31 HR’s, 154 RBI’s, and a .374 batting average. In addition to the Triple Crown stats, he led the field in hits (237), doubles (56), tied Mel Ott in OBP (.442), scored the most runs (111), had the most total bases (406), and had the highest slugging percentage (.641) accounting for nine first place finishes out of 12 offensive categories.
Medwick to this day remains the last National Leaguer to win the Triple Crown. Some speculate that if a NL ballplayer were to win the Triple Crown again, it might possibly be a current Cardinals star, namely Albert Pujols, but again, that is just speculation. A ten-time all star, Medwick led the NL in base hits in back-to-back seasons in 1936-37, and in RBI’s three seasons in a row in 1936-38.
#4 Hugh Duffy – Boston Beaneaters – 1894
Though Duffy only recorded 18 HR’s in his Triple Crown winning season of 1894, he had 145 RBI’s and batted .440, the highest recorded batting average by any winner of the award. Duffy also led in four other offensive categories, namely hits (237), doubles (51), total bases (374), and slugging average (.694). Born a year and a half after the end of the Civil War, Duffy broke into baseball with the Chicago White Stockings of the NL in 1888 five months shy of his 22nd birthday. His .440 batting average is not only the best average by a Triple Crown winner, but the best single season average ever in Major League Baseball.
In 1891, disgruntled with the reserve clause and generally unhappy as a NL ballplayer, Duffy switched to the American Association’s Boston Reds, but he returned to the Beaneaters the following season finding out like so many others of his day, that the grass wasn’t any greener on the other side of the fence. When he finished his career in 1906, he had 106 HR’s which was one of the highest career totals ever in that hitting category to date. After his playing career was over, he served as a scout for the Boston Red Sox organization from 1924-53.
#3 Rogers Hornsby – St. Louis Cardinals – 1925 / Jimmie Foxx – Phil. Athletics – 1933
The number three spot on my list sees the second tie of the bunch. One of the purest contact and power hitters of his day, there was no doubt early on in the season that Hornsby was the odds on favorite to win the Triple Crown in 1925. He hit 39 HR’s, posted 143 RBI’s, and had the fourth highest batting average for a Triple Crown winner of .403, while also leading in total bases (381), OBP (.489), and slugging percentage (.756).
Hornsby’s career began on September 10th, 1915 with the St. Louis Cardinals and ended on July 10th, 1937 with the other St. Louis franchise, the Browns. The 1920’s were good to Hornsby as he batted .424 in 1924, won the Triple Crown in 1922 and 1925, and like another Cardinal (Joe Medwick) would do 12 years down the road in 1937, won the MVP award the same year (1925). He would win the MVP again in 1929 when he was with the Cubs.
There were actually two Triple Crown winners in 1933 — Jimmie Foxx of the Philadelphia Athletics and Chuck Klein of the NL Philadelphia franchise, the Phillies. Unfortunately, despite my respect for Klein, his index value of the 16 sets of stats that I looked at left him off my list for this article.
When Foxx made his debut on May 1st, 1925 he was only 17 years old, but it didn’t take him long to earn his two nicknames “Double X”, and most appropriately “The Beast”, based on the numbers he would post during his career. Lefty Gomez (pitcher for the Yankees) once said that Foxx “had muscles in his hair.” In 1937, a story was told about how Gomez served up a homer to Foxx that he belted into the upper third deck in left field at Yankee Stadium. In an interview after the game, Gomez was asked how far the home run went, to which he replied, “I don’t know, but I do know it took somebody 45 minutes to go up there and get it back.”
In addition to the three Triple Crown categories, Foxx also led in total bases (403) and slugging average (.703). To his credit, Foxx won the AL MVP three times (1932-33 and 1938), led the league in HR’s four times (1932-33, 1935, and 1939), led the league in RBI’s three times (1932-33 and 1938), and led the league in batting average twice (1933 and 1938). He is also one of four on this list along with Rogers Hornsby, Joe Medwick, and Mickey Mantle to have won the Triple Crown and the MVP Award in the same season.
#2 Rogers Hornsby – St. Louis Cardinals – 1922
Does it seem like I’m being redundant? I am. Hornsby won his first Triple Crown in 1922 and his second in 1925. From 1921-25 he averaged a .402 batting average for those five seasons, led the NL in batting average from 1920-25, earned six consecutive batting titles (1921-26), and then won a seventh in 1928 with the Boston Braves. When he was at his peak from 1920-25, he also led in RBI’s four times and HR’s twice. Since Hornsby is the only one on this list to hold two different rankings in the pecking order, I will leave this paragraph brief and move on.
#1 – Lou Gehrig – New York Yankees – 1934
“The Iron Horse”, as Gehrig was so appropriately nicknamed, won the Triple Crown with 49 HR’s (tied with Frank Robinson for 2nd most by a Triple Crown winner), 165 RBI’s (the most by a Triple Crown winner), and a .363 batting average (9th best by a Triple Crown winner). He also led the AL with the most total bases (409), the highest OBP (.465), and the best slugging average (.706).
To add to the above credentials, he holds two all-time records — the most grand slams (23) and highest career slugging percentage by a first baseman (.632). His list of notable achievements includes two AL MVP Awards (1927 and 1936), seven time AL All Star (1933-39, DNP in 1939), two time home run leader (1934 and 1936), five time RBI leader (1927-28, 1930-31, and 1934), six time times on base leader (1927, 1930-31, 1934, and 1936-37), and had a career .340 batting average.
So now that I have finished with the meat of the article, here is the entire list of winners. It includes the years they won the award, the teams they were playing for, where each of their individual stats were ranked out of the entire field, and finally, the index number that resulted from my formula so you could see the remainder of the list and where they were ranked.
RankYearNameTeamHRRBIAVGIndex Value
1st 1934 Lou Gehrig NY Yankees 49 (2) 165 (1) .363 (9) 4.00
2nd 1922 Rogers Hornsby St. Louis Cardinals 42 (5) 152 (4) .401 (5) 4.67
3rd 1925 Rogers Hornsby St. Louis Cardinals 39 (6) 143 (6) .403 (4) 5.33
3rd 1933 Jimmie Foxx Philadelphia Athletics 48 (3) 163 (2) .356 (11) 5.33
4th 1894 Hugh Duffy Boston Beaneaters (NL) 18 (11) 145 (5) .440 (1) 5.67
5th 1937 Joe Medwick St. Louis Cardinals 31 (9) 154 (3) .374 (7) 6.33
6th 1956 Mickey Mantle NY Yankees 52 (1) 130 (8) .353 (12) 7.00
7th 1887 Tip O’Neill St. Louis Browns (AA) 14 (12) 123 (10) .435 (2) 8.00
7th 1901 Nap Lajoie Philadelphia Athletics 14 (12) 125 (9) .426 (3) 8.00
8th 1942 Ted Williams Boston Red Sox 36 (7) 137 (7) .356 (11) 8.33
9th 1966 Frank Robinson Baltimore Orioles 49 (2) 122 (11) .316 (15) 9.33
10th 1967 Carl Yastrzemski Boston Red Sox 44 (4) 121 (12) .326 (14) 10.00
11th 1933 Chuck Klein Philadelphia Phillies 28 (10) 120 (13) .368 (8) 10.33
12th 1909 Ty Cobb Detroit Tigers 9 (13) 107 (15) .377 (6) 11.33
13th 1947 Ted Williams Boston Red Sox 32 (8) 114 (14) .343 (13) 11.67
14th 1878 Paul Hines Providence Grays (NL) 4 (14) 50 (16) .358 (10) 13.33
Sources:
Baseball Almanac http://www.baseball-almanac.com/awards/aw_triph.shtml
Baseball Library http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ballplayers/
Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_crown_%28baseball%29#Batting
