There’s a lot of prestigious accomplishments in baseball, but perhaps none more rare and impressive as the triple crown. The Triple Crown is awarded when a player leads their league in batting average, home runs and runs batted in. When Miguel Cabrera won the Triple Crown in 2012, it had not been accomplished since Carl Yastrzemski did it in 1967. It is a feat so rare, that it has only been accomplished 17 times in baseball history. Now that the 2013 season is about to enter the final month of the regular season, Cabrera has a chance to do something which has never been done before.
Only two players in baseball history have ever managed to win the triple crown twice (Rogers Hornsby in 1922 and 1925, and Ted Williams in 1942 and 1947), but no one has ever managed to win it in back-to-back seasons. In fact, no player in baseball history has ever won the triple crown and managed to even lead the league in two of the three categories the following year. Even if Cabrera doesn’t managed to repeat history this year, he still has a very good shot of making his own.
After yesterday’s game, Cabrera leads the American League in both batting average (.358) and runs batted in (130). Even if he doesn’t play another game for the rest of the year, Cabrera will almost certainly at least win his third straight batting title, something which hasn’t been done in the American League since 1987 when Wade Boggs won his third of four consecutive batting titles.
The last time a player in the National League won three straight batting titles was in 1996, when Tony Gwynn won his third of what would also be four straight batting titles. Even if Cabrera only wins the batting title, he will find himself in some very good company. Although it’s not long, the list of players to have won three or more consecutive batting titles is quite an impressive list. Besides Gwynn and Boggs, it features such baseball legends as Honus Wagner, Rogers Hornsby, Stan Musial, Nap Lajoie, Ty Cobb and Rod Carew. What do they all have in common? Each and every one of them has been enshrined in the Hall of Fame.
Although it’s still unlikely Cabrera will be awarded the Triple Crown for a second-straight season (Chris Davis of the Baltimore Orioles has four more home runs than Cabrera), it’s far from impossible. Baseball fans around the world are starting to finally realize that Miguel Cabrera is not just a “once in a generation” type of player, he’s one of the best to ever have played the game.
