The White Sox turned their second triple play of the season Wednesday, which made me think about triple plays and how cool they are. Elusive, too. My god, they’re elusive.

I’ve always wanted to see a triple play, even on television. I think I’ve seen three triple plays happen live on TV before — May 14, 2000 (by the Expos — their last triple play — vs. the Cubs); May 14, 2006 (by the White Sox vs. the Twins); and April 12, 2013 (by the Yankees v. the Orioles), and I barely missed Randy Velarde’s unassisted job in 2000. That said, I have ADD, and I only half-watched each time and only realized what happened when the play-by-play guy said “triple play.”


In a sense, I feel guilty about it. That said, nobody ever expects a triple play. If runners are on at least two bases with nobody out, the line of thought turns more to, “this pitcher doesn’t seem to have his stuff this inning,” and what it means to the game if the runners score, rather than, “Oh boy, a triple play could happen!”

The great thing about triple plays is that they’re seemingly random. They don’t require the fielding team to be particularly great, nor do they require the batting/running team to be particularly bad, though baserunning ineptitude often helps.


While it’s more than twice as common as a no-hitter — 705 triple plays vs. 295 no-hitters in MLB history so far — and doesn’t require the same skill level as a no-no, a triple play still requires the stars to line up just right.

(WARNING: Bunch-of-numbers paragraph ahead. If that isn’t your thing, skip ahead a bit for the trivia.)


But first: Look kids, it’s Bill Wambsganss! He turned an unassisted triple play in the World Series — still the only triple play in World Series history. He’s on the left; his three victims are on the right. They’re clearly not too upset, given they posed for this.

First, you need to have at least two runners on base. Second, you need to have no outs. This combination happens in only 2.63% of all plate appearances from the 1913 season through Wednesday’s slate of games. Additionally, since 1876, there have been an average of 75 plate appearances per game. This means that, on average, one can expect two plate appearances per game (or more specifically, 1.977) which could end in a triple play. Now we factor in that 13.03% of all plate appearances historically end in strikeouts, 8.42% end in walks, and 0.66% end in getting hit by a pitch. This knocks it down to 1.54 opportunities per game, but we need to factor in home runs that left the park, which consist of 1.78% of all historical plate appearances. Now we’re down to 1.504 opportunities per game on average in which a triple play is possible and the ball will be put into play. That said, given this doesn’t account for trends, if we just simplify it and plug in the 2015 season (2.51% of all plate appearances are no-out, at least two-runner situations; 75.6 PA/game; 1.896 PA/game with a triple-play opportunity; shave 31.6% off due to walks, strikeouts, and outside-the-park homers), we end up with 1.297 plate appearances per game in which a triple play is possible and the ball is put into play. Now that all of this is taken care of, now you have to consider all the other factors — those factors that can’t be fully traced on a historical level (how hard the ball’s hit, where it’s hit, how fast all the baserunners are, baserunning strategies, how adept with their gloves that all the applicable fielders are, how strong the fielders’ arms are, how alert the fielders are, etc.). Going back to the historical numbers, a triple play has occurred in 0.35% of all opportunities. Last year, it occurred four times in 4,606 possible opportunities (0.087%); this year, it’s happened three times in 1,124 chances (0.267%).


This is a very long, numbers-filled way of saying that it doesn’t happen often, even though there’s usually at least one chance in every game, and there’s no way to predict when it’ll happen.

Oh and before I go on, I should give credit to Baseball-Reference.com’s database for this information.


(Seriously, if I had to choose between BR and Facebook for the end of time, it would be a tough choice, and I say this despite first having asked my wife out through Facebook.)

Now For The Trivial Stuff

In looking at the SABR Triple Play Database, a bunch of neat little tidbits about triple plays pop up. For example...


While the first out of a triple play has been recorded by someone at every position on the field, no right-fielder has ever made the third out of one.



Triple plays were most common in the 1800s. From 1876 to 1900, there were 145 triple plays; from 1991 to today, there were 97 (and this isn’t even factoring in that MLB today has many more teams and significantly longer schedules). In fact, teams once turned seven triple plays in a four-week span in May and June of 1882. In contrast, we haven’t seen seven triple plays in a season since 1991. (EDIT: The infield fly rule came into effect in 1901, which likely explains this. A version of it existed starting in 1895, but it only covered one-out situations. Thanks to redditor buzzKillington1 for pointing this out to me.)

On July 17, 1990

In contrast, the entire 1960 and 1974 seasons saw no triple plays at all.

68 people have hit into more than one triple play. 16 of them are Hall 0f Famers. Four people have hit into at least three, and Brooks Robinson

While it makes sense that the more plate appearances you have, the more likely you are to hit into a triple play — Robinson is 21st all-time

I mentioned Hank Aaron the 1950s one

Every team has turned at least one. Tampa Bay became the last to have one, occurring when Toronto’s Ken Huckaby hit into one against the then-Devil Rays in 2002.

The Braves have turned the most triple plays with 41, though given they started in 1871, they’ve had a bit of a head start. The Marlins have turned the fewest, with only one since their inception in 1993. The Orioles have turned them the most frequently over their history, turning one every 496.9 games, with the Indians right behind them with one every 497.4 games (they’ve both turned 36, and both teams started in 1901, but the Orioles have played 18 fewer games).

The Reds have hit into the most triple plays as well with 45, as well as the most frequently, hitting into one every 453 games. The Diamondbacks have the fewest with only one, on September 1, 2015.

Despite having been around 18 years longer (1883) than the eight original AL teams (1901), the Dodgers have turned fewer triple plays than any AL team other than the Yankees — both of them have 27. In fact, the Dodgers have only turned three of them since moving to LA, and they went over 47 years — from April 26, 1949, to June 16, 1996 — without turning one. This was the first one in Tommy Lasorda’s 3,040 managerial career, and it came in Game 3,032.

The Dodgers have also have the worst differential between turning triple plays and hitting into them. They’ve hit into 43 triple plays, resulting in a -16 turned-to-hit differential, so to speak. The White Sox have the best differential, turning 32 and hitting into 20 for an advantage of 12.

In fact, the White Sox have only hit into six more triple plays than the Padres have, despite having been around for 68 more seasons than the Friars. The Pads’ 14 triple plays since they came into existence in 1969 are more than their three expansion brethren — the Royals (6), Brewers (3), and Nationals (3) — combined. I suppose if you can’t throw a no-hitter, at least be notorious for something.

I haven’t really talked about the especially elusive unassisted triple play here yet. Here’s an interesting fact: For a long time, more first basemen had turned unassisted triple plays in the majors than second basemen, as illogical as that seems. First basemen George Burns in 1923 and Johnny Neun in 1927 turned the trick, each snaring a liner, tagging the runner off first base, and then sprinting over to second base. Meanwhile, until 1992, the only second baseman to have turned the trick was Bill Wambsganss in the 1920 World Series.

The only team to have turned three unassisted triple plays in its history is the Cleveland Indians. Also, only one team has ever been the victim of three unassisted triple plays: the Cleveland Indians.

Finally, if there’s anyone who could be called Mr. Triple Play, it’s Gary Gaetti defending NCAA Division II national champion Bearcats football team


If any of this proves anything at all, it proves that witnessing a triple play is like the Sasquatch of baseball.

Josh Murphy once turned an unassisted double play in a city-league game, the closest he’s ever come to a triple play. He considers it his greatest athletic accomplishment.