10 Obscure Baseball Hall Of Fame Hitters Who Should Not Be Forgotten
3. Sam Crawford
Who He Was: Played 1899 to 1917 for the Cincinnati Reds and Detroit Tigers In todays professional baseball world, the triple is by far the rarest of the four types of hit. In an average season, only a few players hit more than ten. Twenty triples in a year is as uncommon now as fifty home runs. The active career triples leader is Carl Crawford, with 120. The last to have more than 150 three-base hits was Roberto Clemente, whose tragic death ended his career in 1972. The rarity of the triple puts into perspective how much the game has changed since its early days when, with home runs being far less frequent, players strived to stretch their doubles into something more and take that extra base. Perhaps the best ever at this was Sam Crawford, who holds the all-time triples record, a mark that will probably never come close to being broken, with an astounding 309. Crawford had a career high 26 triples in 1914 and led his league in the category six times. His other hitting accomplishments were impressive too. He led the National League with 16 home runs in 1901 and the American League with 7 in 1908, making him the first player to lead both leagues at some point in his time in the game. He had over 2900 hits and more than 1500 runs batted in.
Aaron Smith is a writer who can't stick to one genre. He's written horror, mystery, fantasy, and espionage novels and short stories, including new tales of Sherlock Holmes. A lifelong fan of movies, comics, good books, obscure trivia, and the New York Yankees, he lives in northern New Jersey.
