Excerpted from Owen Wilson, Earl Webb, Roger Maris: An Empirical Survey by Charles Therminy. For more information, please write to ChasTher@netscape.net or contact Bank Street Publishing Company at 25518 Hemingway Ave., #C, Stevenson Ranch, CA 91381.
Owen Wilson's total of 36 triples in 1912 remains professional baseball's record-mark for most triples in a single season. It has never been surpassed - even on a minor league level: The minor-league record-holder being Jack Cross, who, in 1925, hit 32 triples for London of the Michigan-Ontario league. Cross' record is remarkable in itself - attained in only 132 games (513 AB's), considering that throughout minor-league history, 200-game seasons were not uncommon. Pete Rose, who hit 30 triples for Tampa in the Florida State League in 1961, shares (with three others), the second-best all-time minor league mark. [It is interesting to note that the second-highest, post dead-ball era major-league mark of 26 triples in a single season, was being tied in the year of 1912. The player: Joe Jackson of the A.L. Cleveland club.]
How did Wilson achieve this up-to-now, unsurpassable record?
Speed - Power - and - Forbes Field.
Speed - First, consider that of Wilson's lifetime total of 59 HRs, 31 were hit inside-the-park! (Records kept of this statistic since 1945, indicate that another Wilson - Willie Wilson - has been the leader with 13.)
"The larger percentage of his long wallops on the home lot strike the ground a short distance from the right field bleachers and with one bound crash against the boards. By his fleetness he makes third before the ball can be returned."
Power - We have seen that Wilson's power numbers in 1911 had elevated him to 2nd in the N.L with 107 RBI'S, 5th in HR's with 12, 3rd in 2B's with 34, and 5th in Total Bases with 257. In 1912, his Slugging Average of .513 was good for 2nd overall, as were his 277 Total Bases. Wilson's RBI total of 95 was 4th best; 11 HR's tied for 3rd best among National Leaguers.
Of his league leading 36 triples, 24 were hit in Forbes Field; however, if he hadn't hit one triple at home, his total of twelve road-three-baggers would have found Wilson tied for ninth overall, in the N. L.
"Wilson's three base shots are entitled to be credited as one of the wonders of 1912. Best of it all, few of the smashes have struck in front of fielders. They have been over the their heads or between the fields, all juicy jams. Ask any pitcher if Wilson hits a high ball very hard. " Sporting Life, Sept. 7, 1912
"He bats left-handed, but has a faculty of sending the ball where the fielders are missing. If the man in left plays back near the fence, Wilson is likely to knock a short fly in his direction, and if he plays in the Texan, in all probability, will send the pellet screeching over his head. Again, he will drive one to extreme right or to center He has the ability to propel the sphere at such rapid velocity that a fielder must be almost in the immediate path of the ball when it is hit to capture it.." The Pittsburg Sunday Post, September 1, 1912
"The Pittsburg players are wondering how many more triples Chief Wilson will add to his already long list [33 as of Aug. 27, 1912] before the season closes. Foxy [Boston Mgr.] John Kling went to a great deal of trouble during the Boston series to place his outfield when Chief was at bat, but it was no discredit to the Boss of the Braves that his strategy failed as Wilson sent one long drive to extreme left, another to right and one to right center It is because he can drive hard to any field that he is so dangerous." Pittsburg Gazette, August 29, 1912
"During the past week, Wilson made one or more three-baggers in every game of the series with Boston. In the doubleheader on Monday he tripled in the opening game and added another pair of three-sackers in the second struggle. As a matter of fact, he came within an ace of securing credit for a third one in the latter combat, but by the margin of an eyelash was caught at third. This decision would have passed without a whimper, had the runner been declared safe, so close was the play, but Umpire Bill Finneran saw fit to call Wilson out at third and the hit was thus chopped to a two-bagger. His thirty-third triple came in Tuesday's game." The Pittsburg Sunday Post, September 1, 1912
'Wilson drove one of the highest flies of the year into the [Chicago's West Side Park] right field bleacher and Honus and Miller scampered home ahead of him." Pittsburg Gazette, September 5, 1912
(And, an example of some wonderful bandiage by Pittsburg Post correspondent Ed F. Balinger): "Wilson attempted to triple, but tapped the pellet a trifle too hard and it floated over the right field wall." The Pittsburg Post, September 14, 1912
Forbes Field - "Forbes Field, home of the Pirates, favored left-hand hitters." So speaks Dick Bartell (Pittsburgh N.L. 1927-1930), in his memoirs entitled: Rowdy Richard.
The Pirate team of 1912 hammered a N.L., and major league record-total of 129 triples; outdistancing the nearest competition - Chicago and Cincinnati (each team hitting 91), by a plus-38 differential.
In their first four years of occupancy of Forbes Field (beginning on June 30, 1909), the Pirates became the perennial leaders in this category (with the exception of 1910, when their triples total of 83 was one shy of Chicago's 84 three-base-hits). This dominance has been well noted by SABR member Richard L. Field Burtt, in his valuable contribution to the literature of Pittsburgh baseball, Triples, the Pirates, and Forbes Field, included in Insider's Baseball: "...without discounting the influence of Forbes Field, let's concede that the Pittsburgh team had more than its share of good, fast-running line-drive hitters."
[The author attempted (unsuccessfully) to reach Mr. Burtt during the course of writing this book; Burtt was hospitalized at the time, never to recover. He passed away in late 1991. Rest In Peace, Richard.]
Further, Mr. Burtt notes: "The size and configuration of this park were conducive to batted balls rolling a long way and to outfielders running no end while chasing the ball and then throwing to very deep cutoff men. The fences, except near the right field foul pole, were at such great distances that many potential home runs became very long outs;
or if they were line drives, they frequently went for three bases or sometimes for four." Fertile areas for the aforementioned "juicy jams", by Wilson.
A perusal of Forbes Field's dimensions, when viewed from the standpoint of our late 20th Century, reveals how this highly codified sport - baseball - has remained inflexible in so many areas save at least one: the size of the playing arena, as determined by the fencing.
A look at the dimensions of Forbes Field, circa 1909:
Left Field - 360 ft.
Left Center - 406 ft.
Deepest Corner (to the left of straight away center) - 462 ft.
Center Field - 442 ft.
Right Center - 416 ft.
Right Field - 376 ft.
It has been rightly noted that not one of Wilson's famous teammates: Honus Wagner, Fred Clarke, Tommy Leach, Max Carey . . . each sharing these same extremely 'friendly confines' . . . each producing more three-baggers over the courses of their careers than Wilson, ever approached Owen Wilson's single-season accomplishments.
Another league-leading accomplishment by Wilson was cited by THE SPORTING NEWS, in its recap of the 1912 season (utilizing the verbiage of the period): "Thirty-five hits were made in the National last season that swept the bases clear of their three tenants. The only player who twice turned this trick was Chief Wilson of the Pirates, he making a triple with the hassocks congested off Dickson of Boston and a homer when three were on off Steele of St. Louis."
Wilson, in the midst of setting his triples' record in 1912, twice banged-out multiple triples in a single game. At the time that Wilson had 33 triples in the books, an uncredited writer stated in the Pittsburg Dispatch: "The best previous individual record [for triples] in the National League was made by Larry Doyle of New York last Year. Doyle made 25 triples. Previous to that time the record was held by Sam Crawford, now of Detroit, but who while a member of the Cincinnati club in 1902 made 23 three-baggers. Lajoie holds the world's record, having made 43 triples in 1903. It is not likely that Wilson will be able to equal Lajoie's record, but he will come close to it." Pittsburg Dispatch September 1, 1912
Curiously, The Pittsburgh Sunday Post's columnist Ed F. Balinger was also to cite: "Larry Lajoie, of the Naps, was considered the premier slugger in this line [triples] eight or ten years ago, but those were the days of the lively ball. Wilson's mark [33] is therefore all the more wonderful... "Lajoie's record was 43 triples in one season. The great Cleveland batsman established these figures in 1903."
Indeed, Lajoie's phantom record of 43 triples should have seemed difficult to exceed. Napoleon Lajoie had checked in with 13 triples for Cleveland in 1903. His career high for three-baggers was 25 in 1897, this according to records cited by SABR member J. M. Murphy in the Spring 1988 National Pastime special Lajoie issue. I questioned Murphy directly, whether he had any clue as to why correspondents, writing in 1912, could be so off-base in their record-keeping. He similarly was left at a loss for such disparity, while emphasizing that Lajoie was primarily a doubles hitter of that era. (Additionally, there was no existent publishing connection between the Post and the Dispatch - according to the Carnegie Historical Society - which would seem to rule out the possibility that the above correspondents were one-and-the-same, but they probably drank together).
The all-time 'world record' at the time of Wilson's onslaught was 31 triples: jointly held by the deadball-era's Heinie Reitz (1894) and Dave Orr (1886). Consequently, Wilson's record achievement went unheralded in the pages of two Pittsburgh daily newspapers.
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Copyright © 1993 by Charles T. Therminy. Posted May 30, 2001.
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