In the recently concluded Major League Baseball season, Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees came close to winning baseball’s coveted Triple Crown, which involves leading the league in batting average, home runs and runs batted in. Towards the end of the season he fell short in the batting average category finishing at .311, but was tops in home runs with 62 and runs batted in with 131.

His pursuit of the coveted status of triple crown got me to think back on those who have reached that goal. The most recent was Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers in 2012. I can’t quite put my finger on the reason why, but I have always had a special interest in the player known as “Miggy” in Detroit. I had been a fan of his even before 2012, but his reaching the triple crown solidified my interest. It had been 45 years since anyone had led the league in the categories that make up the triple crown.

Thinking about that distinction got me to wondering how many players have won the triple crown over the years. RBI’s weren’t an official statistic until 1920, but since then, there have been 10 players who have won 12 triple crowns. In 100 years, that’s not many.

Cabrera won the American League triple crown in 2012 with a batting average of .330, 44 home runs and 139 RBIs. He won the batting average title by four points, had a one-homer edge over the second place guy and had 11 more RBI’s than anyone else. His first year in the MLB was 2003 when he broke in with the Miami Marlins. He has been in Detroit since 2008 and I read somewhere that even though his skills have diminished with age, his salary for 2022 is roughly $27 million. Not too bad.

Cabrera didn’t win the triple crown in 2013, but he had a better year at the plate, hitting .349 and his home run and RBI production were close to his 2012 totals. He was the American League MVP both years.

I didn’t have to look up who had been the last MLB player to win a triple before Cabrera did it in 2012. I remembered clearly that it was Carl Yastrzemski who turned the trick in 1967. Yaz was playing for the Boston Red Sox and had a batting average of .326, hit 44 home runs and had 121 RBIs. I remember that season very clearly as it was my first summer to live in Illinois. Where I lived (Decatur in Central Illinois) there was easy access to radio stations that carried live broadcasts of three major league teams-the St. Louis Cardinals, the Chicago Cubs and the Chicago White Sox. There was a lot of excitement among baseball fans where I lived. The Cardinals were winning the National League, the Cubs were doing well, but couldn’t catch the Cardinals and the White Sox were in the thick of things in the American League. There were four teams, the Red Sox, Detroit Tigers, Minnesota Twins and White Sox were in contention right down to the wire. The final day of the season saw the Red Sox and Twins tied for first place and the Tigers were one-half back. When the smoke cleared on the final day, Boston had won. Minnesota and Detroit finished one game back and the White Sox were three games out. Yaz secured the triple crown on that final day as well. He had had an outstanding year. In addition to the triple crown, he led the league in on-base percentage, slugging, runs, hits and total bases. He also won a Gold Glove Award for his outstanding play in left field and was named the American League MVP.

In 1967 it had been only one year since someone had won a triple crown. Frank Robinson turned the trick in 1966 as a member of the Baltimore Orioles. Robinson had been traded to the Orioles by the Cincinnati Reds in the 1965 offseason. It was thought that Robinson was turning 30 and his better years were behind him. In Baltimore, Robinson hit .316 with 49 home runs and 122 RBIs to lead the league in that category. Robinson teamed up with third baseman Brooks Robinson to spark the Orioles to win the league and the World Series in four games over the Los Angeles Dodgers. It was the only time in his 21-year career that he led the league in any of the three categories.

Native Oklahoman Mickey Mantle won the triple crown in 1956. He batted .353, hit 52 home runs and had 130 RBIs. His batting average and RBI total were just a few in front of the second place player, but he blew the competition away in home runs. Vic Wertz’s 32 was the second place homer total. Duke Snider won the National League home run total that year with 43. It was the first of two times Mantle surpassed 50 home runs in a season. He had 54 home runs in 1961, the year Roger Maris hit 61.

Ted Williams won the triple crown twice-- in 1942 and in 1947. In 1942, he batted .356, had 36 home runs and had 137 RBIs. He then sat out three seasons, fighting in World War II, but when he came back he finished second in each category in 1946. In 1947, he batted .343, with 32 home runs and 114 RBIs to lead the league in each category. So if it hadn’t been for his service in the war, he very well may have had one or two more triple crowns to his total.

So far, each triple crown mentioned has been in the American League. The last National League triple crown was in 1937, when Joe Medwick of the St. Louis Cardinals had career highs in each category, batting .374, slugging 31 home runs and driving home 154 runs. There is a kind of asterisk with Medwick’s triple crown as he tied with Mel Ott for the home run title that year.

It is no surprise that Lou Gehrig was a triple crown winner. Gehrig was probably the most consistent batter of his era and won the crown in 1934. His batting average was .363, he had 49 home runs and had 166 RBIs. It was the only time that he led the league in batting and the 49 was his largest home run total ever. Strangely Gehrig finished in fifth place in the MVP voting for the 1934 season.

In 1933, there were two triple crown winners. Jimmie Foxx of the Philadelphia Athletics won in the American League and Chuck Klein of the Philadelphia Phillies won in the National League.

Foxx had come close in 1932, hitting 58 home runs and amassing 169 RBIs to lead in those categories, but his .364 batting average fell a little short. But in 1933, he topped all three categories with a batting average of .356, 48 home runs and 163 RBIs.

Klein batted .368, had 28 home runs and 120 RBIs. Obviously, Klein fell far short of Foxx’s home runs and RBI totals, but they were good enough to be the best in the National League.

Rogers Hornsby was the other player to win two triple crowns. He turned the trick in 1922 and in 1925, both with the St. Louis Cardinals. He batted .401 with 42 home runs and 152 RBIs in 1922 and he batted .403 with 39 homers and 143 driven home in 1925. Hornsby was an incredible batter, hitting over .400 on three occasions.

As mentioned before, RBIs weren’t recorded officially before 1920, but statisticians have gone back and figured out what those totals would have been. On that basis, these ancient players would have won triple crowns, Paul Hines of the Providence Grays in 1878; Tip O’Neill (not related to the future Speaker of the House) of the St. Louis Browns in 1887; Hugh Duffy of the Boston Beaneaters in 1894; Nap Lajoie of the Philadelphia Athletics in 1901, Ty Cobb of the Detroit Tigers in 1909 and Heinie Zimmerman of the Chicago Cubs in 1912. An interesting note, Cobb would have won with nine home runs in 1909. It was a different era.