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Inbaseball, atriple is the act of abatter safely reachingthird base after hitting the ball, with neither the benefit of a fielder's misplay (seeerror) nor anotherrunner being put out on afielder's choice. A triple is sometimes called a "three-bagger" or "three-base hit".[1] Forstatistical andscorekeeping purposes it is denoted by3B.[2][3]
Triples have become somewhat rare inMajor League Baseball, less common than both thedouble and the (outside-the-park)home run. This is because a triple requires a ball to be hit solidly to a distant part of the field (ordinarily aline drive orfly ball near thefoul line closest toright field), or the ball to take an irregular bounce in theoutfield, usually against the wall, away from afielder. It also requires the batter's team to have a good strategic reason for wanting the batter on third base, as a stand-updouble is sufficient to put the batter inscoring position and there will often be little strategic advantage to risk beingtagged out whilst trying to stretch a double into a triple (although reaching third base with fewer than two outs could potentially allow the runner to reach home plate on asacrifice fly). On the extreme, the triple may be stretched into the very rareinside-the-park home run. The trend for modernballparks is to have smaller outfields (generally increasing the number ofhome runs which are hit out of the park), ensuring that the career and season triples leaders mostly consist of those who played early in Major League Baseball history, particularly in thedead-ball era. Another factor that may have contributed to the decrease of triples is the shift from speed to power as the most important factor in batting in themodern era.
A walk-off triple (one that ends a game) occurs very infrequently. In general, game-winning hits with a runner on first base are walk-off doubles, since it is quite common for runners starting on first base to score on a double (as it is to make it from first to third on a single). For example, in2019, there was not a single walk-off triple.
| Play | Career length | Number of triples |
|---|---|---|
| Sam Crawford | 1899–1917 | 309 |
| Ty Cobb | 1905–1928 | 295 |
| Honus Wagner | 1897–1917 | 252 |
| Jake Beckley | 1888–1907 | 243 |
| Roger Connor | 1880–1897 | 233 |
| Tris Speaker | 1907–1928 | 222 |
| Fred Clarke | 1894–1915 | 220 |
| Dan Brouthers | 1879–1904 | 205 |
| Joe Kelley | 1891–1908 | 194 |
| Paul Waner | 1926–1945 | 191 |
| Player | Year | Number of triples |
|---|---|---|
| Chief Wilson | 1912 | 36 |
| Dave Orr | 1886 | 31 |
| Heinie Reitz | 1894 | 31 |
| Perry Werden | 1893 | 29 |
| Harry Davis | 1897 | 28 |
| Jimmy Williams | 1899 | 28 |
| George Davis | 1893 | 27 |
| Sam Thompson | 1894 | 27 |
| Sam Crawford | 1914 | 26 |
| Kiki Cuyler | 1925 | 26 |
| Joe Jackson | 1912 | 26 |
| John Reilly | 1890 | 26 |
| George Treadway | 1894 | 26 |
