Triple Crown (baseball)

In baseball, a player earns a Triple Crown when he leads a league in three specific statistical categories in the same season.

The Triple Crown reflects the ability of a hitter to excel in three important ways: to hit safely a high percentage of the time (batting average); to hit the ball long distances (home runs); and to produce when runners are on base, driving them home to score (RBI).

Rogers Hornsby was the first to accomplish it, winning his first in 1922 and then leading both leagues in 1925 en route to his second Triple Crown, both with the St. Louis Cardinals.

Along with Hornsby's two, Tip O'Neill won in the now-defunct American Association in 1887 while the team was known as the St. Louis Browns,[7] and Joe Medwick added the Cardinals' fourth in 1937.

[10][11] Baseball journalist Tim Kurkjian believes the Triple Crown has become more difficult to win with the advent of more hitters who choose to specialize in either hitting for batting average or power.

[12] A pitcher who leads the league in wins, strikeouts, and earned run average (ERA) is said to have won the "Pitching Triple Crown.

It was used in that older sense to describe the unsuccessful pursuits of that goal by Bobby Shantz in 1952[14] and Johnny Antonelli in 1954[15] as well as Sandy Koufax in 1963.

[19][20][21] Walter Johnson won his three Triple Crowns with the original Washington Senators, leading the league in all three categories in 1913, 1918, and 1924.

[25][26][27] Outside MLB, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Sun Dong-yol each won three pitching triple crowns and are the only players to achievement in three consecutive seasons.

[28] One pitcher, Guy Hecker, won a Triple Crown in a defunct 19th century major league; he led the original American Association in wins, strikeouts, and ERA in 1884 while pitching for the Louisville Colonels.

[29] Eighteen of 24 major league pitchers who have won a Triple Crown and are eligible for the Hall of Fame have been inducted.

Among the major leaguers who earned the pitching Triple Crown, the lowest ERAs belong to Walter Johnson (1.14 in 1913 AL) and Grover Alexander (1.22 in 1915 NL).

Among AL pitching Triple Crown winners, Pedro Martínez registered the highest season strikeout total, with 313 in 1999.