27 MLB records that will never be broken
63. . Sam Crawford. 1899-1917. 309 Career Triples. 13. player
Chief Wilson set the single-season mark for triples in a season, but no one in Major League Baseball history had more in a career than Sam Crawford. The Hall of Famer collected 309 three-baggers in 19 big league seasons from 1899 to 1917, which began with the Cincinnati Reds, but were mostly spent hitting cleanup behind Ty Cobb with the Detroit Tigers.
Interestingly enough, Cobb ranks second on the all-time triples list with 295, and the teammates rank sit ahead of third place Honus Wagner’s 252. The active leader, Carl Crawford, has just 121.
According to Crawford’s SABR bio, written by Bill Lamberty:
"Standing an even six feet tall and weighing 190 pounds, Crawford was generally regarded as the strongest hitter of his day. “While we are no sculptor, we believe that if we were and were looking for a model for a statue of a slugger we would choose Sam Crawford for that role,” F.C. Lane of Baseball Magazine wrote in 1916. “Sam has tremendous shoulders and great strength. That strength is so placed in his frame and the weight so balanced that he can get it all behind the drive when he smites a baseball.” Yet Crawford was much more than a one-dimensional slugger. Playing in the era’s cavernous parks, Crawford had to leg out even the longest of his drives. In addition to his 309 career triples, the Nebraskan also holds the record for the most documented inside-the-park home runs in a single season, with 12 in 1901."
Crawford averaged 20 triples per 162 games and surpassed the 20-triple mark five times in his career; he set a personal best with 26 in 1914. He also led the American League six times and all of Major League Baseball on five occasions.
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