Thursday, March 7, 2013

1989 Topps Willie Wilson

Aside from an inside the park home run, the triple has to be one of the most exciting hits in baseball. A combination of power, speed and maybe some lucky bouncing around in the corner provides one of baseball's rarest hits. Sometimes the league leader barely reaches double digits for the season as was the case in 1988.
 
 
The 1988 season was the last time Willie Wilson led the league in triples, although he had previously done it four other times.  He is currently tied for 56th on the all-time triples list. When he retired in 1994 with 147 triples, he had been the active career leader for the past seven years taking over for teammate George Brett. Maybe playing in Kauffman stadium was a triple hitter's paradise?
 
While I usually only talk about the most recent accomplishment, I though I'd point out that only one player has since topped Wilson's 1985 total of 21 triples. That was Curtis Granderson in 2007 with 23. Something tells me that Chief Wilson seaosn record of 36 and Sam Crawford's career record of 309 are pretty safe.


2 comments:

  1. Not only is Wilson's record safe, but nobody else has over 26 triples in a season since the 1800's.

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