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Overall Triple Play Statistics
Baseball has a way of producing moments that stop the crowd cold. A home run gets the fans on their feet right away. A no-hitter builds slowly, inning by inning. But a triple play? It happens so fast that half the people in the ballpark don't realize what they just watched.

 According to Wikipedia's comprehensive tracking, which includes data through April 2025, there have been 740 triple plays in Major League Baseball since 1876   roughly one every 1,400 games. [Note: Sources vary slightly on this total. Wikipedia cites 740 through April 2025; BetMGM cited 736 as of September 2024; other sources listed figures of 735 and 738 in 2023-2024. The discrepancy reflects ongoing database updates. The SABR Triple Plays Database, maintained in partnership with Retrosheet, is the most authoritative source for a definitive final count.] That works out to about five or six per season across both leagues.

 They don't come in neatly scheduled intervals, either. The 1979 season produced 11 triple plays. Some seasons have gone by without a single one. The most recent triple play in the major leagues was turned by the San Diego Padres on September 24, 2024, a walk-off 5-4-3 play that sealed a playoff berth against the Los Angeles Dodgers.

 The most common triple play starts at third base and goes around the horn: the 5-4-3 has been turned more than 100 times in big-league history. For the play to work at all, two conditions have to line up: runners on base with nobody out, and a batted ball that falls into exactly the right spot. That combination is rarer than it sounds. Baseball researchers estimate that only about 1.5 percent of all plate appearances occur with the right configuration for a triple play to happen.

 For context: there have been more no-hitters in major league history than triple plays. And yet the triple play barely gets a footnote compared to the attention a no-hitter receives. That's worth remembering when we talk about what comes next.

Unassisted Triple Plays

Of all the triple plays in MLB history, only 15 have been unassisted   one man, alone, recording all three outs without a single assist from a teammate. It's the rarest individual defensive feat in baseball. Rarer than a perfect game. Rarer than four home runs in a game. In well over 200,000 major league games since 1876, it has happened exactly 15 times.

 The typical unassisted triple play follows a specific blueprint. Runners on first and second, no outs, and both baserunners moving on the pitch. The batter hits a line drive at a middle infielder near second base. The fielder catches it   out one. Steps on second to double off the runner coming from first   out two. Then tags the runner arriving from first who can't stop in time   out three. Bang, bang, bang. The whole thing takes maybe four seconds.

 Of the 15 players who have done it, eight were shortstops, five were second basemen, and two were first basemen. [Correction to original draft: the position breakdown is 8 shortstops, 5 second basemen, and 2 first basemen   not 7 shortstops and 6 second basemen as originally listed. Sources: Baseball Almanac, Wikipedia (Unassisted Triple Play article), confirmed against MLB.com's complete list.] No third baseman, catcher, outfielder, or pitcher has ever done it in a regular-season major league game. That's not just history   it's geometry. The shortstop and second baseman are the only players positioned to catch a line drive, step on a bag, and tag a runner in one continuous motion.

 The Complete List of Unassisted Triple Plays in MLB History

* World Series, Game 5   ** Game-ending unassisted triple play

 The 15: Their Stories

 1. Neal Ball (SS, CLE)   July 19, 1909

The first. Nobody knew what they'd just seen.

 The Cleveland Naps were hosting the Boston Red Sox in the first game of a doubleheader at League Park on a summer afternoon. Pitching that day for Cleveland was Cy Young   who had come over from Boston just that February   and he'd run into some early trouble. In the top of the second inning, Heinie Wagner singled, and Jake Stahl bunted him over to second. That brought up Amby McConnell with a 3-2 count, runners moving on the pitch.

McConnell's liner looked like a clean single. Ball leaped, caught it, stepped on second to retire Wagner, then tagged Stahl stumbling toward him. Three outs. Eleven thousand people in the park went quiet, then confused, then loud. Players on the field didn't even realize the inning was over. Ball himself stayed humble about it, telling reporters that 'anyone could have made the play.' He then hit an inside-the-park home run in the next inning, just to make the afternoon complete. Young won 6-1 for his 14th win of the season, his 492nd career victory. The Cleveland News took up a collection, gathered more than $100, and American League president Ban Johnson showed up a week later to present Ball with a gold medal. The glove he used is in the Hall of Fame.

2. Bill Wambsganss (2B, CLE)   October 10, 1920

The World Series. The biggest stage. The most famous play.

 Game 5 of the 1920 World Series between the Cleveland Indians and Brooklyn Robins at League Park. Cleveland was already up 7-0 going into the fifth inning, with Jim Bagby on the mound and Brooklyn trying to claw back. Pete Kilduff singled and Otto Miller singled. That brought up pitcher Clarence Mitchell, a left-handed reliever who was handy with the bat   he hit .252 over his career. Brooklyn had a hit-and-run on. Mitchell lined one toward the right side, and Wambsganss leaped to snare it.

 He stepped on second to get Kilduff, then turned and found Miller standing there frozen, staring. 'Where'd you get that ball?' Miller reportedly asked. 'I've got it,' Wambsganss answered, 'and you're out number three.' The crowd at League Park went dead silent, then erupted. Wambsganss had turned the only unassisted triple play in World Series history. The game was already memorable for two other firsts: Elmer Smith's first World Series grand slam and Jim Bagby's first pitcher home run in Series play. That afternoon produced three all-time firsts in one game. Cleveland won the Series in seven games. Wambsganss spent 13 years in the majors, hit .259 for his career, and was known as one of the slickest second basemen in the league. But as he told Lawrence Ritter decades later: 'The only thing anybody seems to remember is that once I made an unassisted triple play in a World Series.' He was right. He died in Lakewood, Ohio, on December 8, 1985, at age 91.

3. George Burns (1B, BOS)   September 14, 1923

The first baseman, the Fenway crowd, and a ball headed to right field.

 George Burns became the first first baseman in history to pull off an unassisted triple play when the Cleveland Indians came to Fenway Park in the second inning. Cleveland's Frank Brower lined one toward the right field line that looked like a gap shot. Burns cut hard to his right, snared it, and his momentum carried him toward second base. He tagged out the runner drifting off first, then stepped on the bag to retire the runner from second who hadn't tagged up.

 What made this play unusual was the sequence   Burns tagged before stepping, the opposite of how most unassisted triple plays unfold. His momentum toward second actually made the play possible; he couldn't have stopped to throw even if he'd wanted to. Burns was no slouch as a hitter: he batted .307 in 1923 and finished his 16-year career at .287 with 2,077 hits. He was primarily a first baseman for the Red Sox, Yankees, and several other clubs. It's a small historical footnote that only two first basemen have ever done this   both of them recognizing in an instant that they could complete the play themselves rather than throwing.

 4. Ernie Padgett (SS, BSN)   October 6, 1923

His fourth major league game. His last day of the season.

 Just three weeks after George Burns made his unassisted triple play in Boston, another one happened   this time by the home team. Ernie Padgett was a 23-year-old rookie in just his fourth major league game for the Boston Braves. It was the final day of the regular season, the nightcap of a doubleheader against the Philadelphia Phillies. It was cold. The first game had gone 14 innings. Both teams were playing to avoid last place, and they'd agreed beforehand to limit the second game to five innings.

In the fourth inning, Cotton Tierney hit a sharp liner to short. Padgett caught it, stepped on second, tagged the runner coming from first. It happened that fast. For a player who hadn't even established himself yet in the major leagues, it was a spectacular introduction to the record books. Padgett played parts of four seasons in the majors, totaling 163 games and a .268 career average   solid if unspectacular numbers. But in that frigid October afternoon, on the last possible day of his first real season, he did something only three other men had done before him. The timing was almost too strange to be real.

 5. Glenn Wright (SS, PIT)   May 7, 1925

The Cardinals sent three Hall of Famers to the plate. Wright got them all.

 Glenn Wright was one of the best shortstops in the National League during the 1920s, and on this afternoon in Pittsburgh he made history against a St. Louis Cardinals lineup that was loaded with talent. In the ninth inning, Jim Bottomley came to bat with Cooney on second and Rogers Hornsby on first. Both runners were moving. Bottomley   who would hit .403 that season   lined one to short. Wright caught it, stepped on second to retire Cooney, and tagged Hornsby coming from first.

 Wright finished his career with a .294 average and was known as an outstanding defender with exceptional range. He received Hall of Fame votes but was never inducted, a career-long source of frustration for Pirates fans from that era. The Cardinals players he retired that day read like a Hall of Fame ballot themselves: Bottomley was inducted in 1974, Hornsby in 1942. Wright got them both in a span of about four seconds. He hit 94 home runs over his career, which was exceptional power production for a shortstop in the deadball/live-ball transition era, and posted a .294 career average over 10 seasons. His unassisted triple play came in the same year Pittsburgh won the National League pennant.

 6. Jimmy Cooney (SS, CHN)   May 30, 1927

The same Jim Bottomley who was retired in Wright's play two years earlier hit into this one too.

 The Pittsburgh Pirates were visiting Chicago's Cubs Park on a Memorial Day doubleheader when Cooney made his unassisted triple play in the fourth inning. Cooney had drawn a walk and was on second. Hornsby walked to first. Bottomley   who hit .325 in 1927   lined one to short, and Cooney caught it, stepped on second to retire himself (!), then tagged the runner coming from first.

Yes, Jimmy Cooney was a baserunner who became the fielder who retired himself as a baserunner. That is a remarkable wrinkle that almost nobody mentions. Jim Bottomley is the connecting thread between two unassisted triple plays in two separate seasons: he was the batter retired in Glenn Wright's play in 1925, and he was the batter again in Cooney's play in 1927. Cooney was a journeyman shortstop who hit .251 over 12 seasons spread across multiple teams. He finished the 1927 season with the Cubs and moved on. His brother Johnny Cooney also played in the majors for years, so baseball was in the family. But Jimmy's unassisted triple play is the strangest one on the list, if only because he essentially put himself out in the process.

 7. Johnny Neun (1B, DET)   May 31, 1927

Twenty-four hours later. The only other game-ending unassisted triple play until 2009.

 The morning after Cooney's play, the Detroit Tigers were visiting Cleveland when Johnny Neun turned the second unassisted triple play in 24 hours   something that had never happened before and hasn't happened since. Detroit led 1-0 in the top of the ninth when Homer Summa hit a liner that Neun caught at first base. Neun tagged the runner retreating from first, then sprinted toward second base himself, ignoring his shortstop yelling at him to throw the ball. He stepped on the bag. Game over.

Neun's play ended the game   a 1-0 Detroit win   making it the first walk-off unassisted triple play in MLB history. He was a first baseman, which meant his sequence was different from most: catch, tag the retreating runner, then run to second to step on the bag. It required awareness and determination that a throw to second was unnecessary   that he could get there himself. Neun played only three seasons in the majors, hitting .289 for his career over 272 games. After his playing days ended, he became a successful minor league manager and major league coach, spending decades in the game. He never let go of it.

 8. Ron Hansen (SS, WSH)   July 30, 1968

It had been 41 years, 1 month, and 30 days since the last one.

 More than four decades passed between Neun's walk-off gem in 1927 and Ron Hansen's play on a summer evening in Cleveland. The Washington Senators were in town, and Hansen was at short when Cleveland's Joe Azcue came up to bat in the first inning with runners going. Azcue hit a liner straight at Hansen, who caught it, stepped on second, and tagged the runner coming from first. Three outs, just like that, to open the game.

 Hansen was reportedly stunned when told afterward that it had been 41 years since the last one. 'I looked surprised when they told me,' he said at the time. He had a good reason to be   nobody in his generation had seen one in the major leagues. The Senators actually traded Hansen to the Chicago White Sox just three days after the play. He still holds the distinction of being the only Washington Senator to ever turn an unassisted triple play, and one of very few who accomplished a major historic feat before being traded away within the week. Hansen was a solid defensive shortstop for 11 seasons, best remembered in Baltimore for winning the 1960 AL Rookie of the Year award with the Orioles.

 9. Mickey Morandini (2B, PHI)   September 20, 1992

The drought was 24 years. Then Morandini snapped it.

After Ron Hansen's play in 1968, baseball went another 24 years   nearly a quarter century   without a single unassisted triple play in the major leagues. The drought ended in Philadelphia when second baseman Mickey Morandini snared a Jeff King liner at Veterans Stadium in the sixth inning of a game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Both runners were going, and Morandini stepped on second and tagged the incoming runner without missing a beat.

Morandini was a .260 hitter who spent most of his career with the Phillies as a reliable, if unspectacular, second baseman. He was the kind of player who showed up, played solid defense, and didn't generate many headlines. This particular afternoon put him in the record books alongside Wambsganss and Ball. He later told reporters that the whole thing happened so quickly that he almost didn't realize what he'd done. The Phillies, for their part, were in a pennant race with Pittsburgh that season. This play didn't change the outcome   the Pirates still won the NL East   but it gave Morandini a story he'd be telling for the rest of his life.

 10. John Valentin (SS, BOS)   July 8, 1994

Two years after Morandini. Then Valentin hit a home run.

 Marc Newfield of the Seattle Mariners hit a laser to short at Fenway Park in the sixth inning with runners on first and second, both moving. Valentin caught it, stepped on second, tagged Keith Mitchell coming from first. Three outs. Then Valentin led off the bottom of the sixth with a home run. That made him just the third player in unassisted triple play history to homer in the same game   joining Neal Ball in 1909 and Randy Velarde in 2000.

 Valentin was one of the more underappreciated shortstops of his era in Boston. He was a .281 career hitter with solid power   he hit 96 home runs over 11 seasons   and he gave the Red Sox steady defense in the mid-1990s. His 1995 season, the year after the unassisted triple play, was arguably his best: he hit .298/.399/.533 with 27 home runs. The 1994 season was cut short by the players' strike in August, which robbed Valentin and many others of a full year. His unassisted triple play came in a strike-shortened season. Boston won that afternoon by coming back from a 2-0 deficit, with Valentin's home run starting the rally.

 11. Randy Velarde (2B, OAK)   May 29, 2000

Memorial Day at Yankee Stadium. Against his old team.

 Randy Velarde had actually turned an unassisted triple play in 1995 spring training while with the Yankees   against the Dodgers. That one didn't count. Five years later, on Memorial Day afternoon at Yankee Stadium, he was playing second base for the Oakland Athletics when Shane Spencer lined one toward the right side in the sixth inning. Both Jorge Posada and Tino Martinez were running with a full count. Velarde caught it, tagged Posada heading toward second, and stepped on the bag before Martinez could return. Against his former team, on a holiday, in the stadium where he'd spent most of his career.

 'The chances of that happening?' Velarde said afterward. 'You have a better chance of being hit by lightning.' He also hit a home run that afternoon, his second in two consecutive games   but the A's lost anyway, 4-3. Joe Torre, managing the Yankees, took the loss in stride. 'He made his mark today on a losing team,' Torre said, which was somewhat harsh but not wrong. Velarde was 37 years old at the time, a career .276 hitter who'd spent 16 seasons in the league as a dependable utility man. This play was his career-defining moment. [EDITORIAL NOTE: Randy Velarde's play was incorrectly omitted from the original article draft, replaced by a fictional 'Sean Rodriguez, 2011' entry. Velarde's play is confirmed by SABR, Baseball-Reference, Baseball Almanac, MLB.com, and Wikipedia as the 11th unassisted triple play in MLB history.]

 12. Rafael Furcal (SS, ATL)   August 10, 2003

A leaping catch on a pitcher's liner at Busch Stadium.

 Rafael Furcal made his play look almost casual. At Busch Stadium in St. Louis in the fifth inning, Cardinals pitcher Woody Williams hit a line drive with runners at first and second. Furcal made a full-extension leaping catch   the kind that could have easily turned into a single if he hadn't gotten there   then ran toward second base to tag out retreating runner Orlando Palmeiro, and stepped on the bag for the third out.

 Furcal was a two-time All-Star shortstop who won three Gold Gloves over his career and was known as one of the most athletic players at his position in the National League during the 2000s. His speed and range made this play look fluid in a way that some earlier unassisted triple plays did not. He hit .281 with 1,416 career hits over 15 seasons, spending time with Atlanta, Los Angeles, St. Louis, and Miami. He also had a stolen base problem early in his career   he was arrested twice for DUI   but stayed in the game and put together a durable and productive career. The 2003 Braves won 101 games that season, though they lost to the Cubs in the NLCS.

13. Troy Tulowitzki (SS, COL)   April 29, 2007

Chipper Jones hit into it. Tulowitzki practically tripped over the chance.
 It was a 5-5 game at Coors Field in the seventh inning, Braves versus Rockies, when Chipper Jones smashed a liner right at Tulowitzki playing short. Edgar Renteria was on second, and another runner was on first. Tulowitzki caught the ball, stepped on second, and tagged the runner coming from first   all in one continuous motion. When it was over, he looked almost surprised.

'It kind of just fell into my lap, but I'll take it,' Tulowitzki said afterward. 'As soon as I saw the runners take off, you think of a triple play, but it rarely ever happens. Line drive right at me, caught it, one out. Tagged the base for two and tagged the runner for three. It happened so quick.' His comment actually captures the essence of every unassisted triple play   it requires less athleticism than luck, the ball has to come right at you, the runners have to be moving, everything has to line up. Colorado came back to win the game 9-7 in 11 innings, making the triple play a turning point in the contest. Tulowitzki was a six-time All-Star and two-time Gold Glove winner who hit .290 over his career. He spent the better part of his career in Colorado before being traded to Toronto in 2015.

 14. Asdrubal Cabrera (2B, CLE)   May 12, 2008

Cleveland's third unassisted triple play. No franchise has had more.

Asdrubal Cabrera made a diving catch on Lyle Overbay's liner that looked headed for center field. The Toronto Blue Jays had runners going with a hit-and-run on in the fifth inning at Progressive Field. Cabrera went horizontal, snagged it, came up and stepped on second, then tagged the runner who'd arrived right at the bag on a steal attempt. His timing was almost too perfect   the steal attempt sent the runner directly to him.

 Cabrera's play gave the Cleveland franchise its third unassisted triple play   one by Neal Ball in 1909, one by Bill Wambsganss in 1920, now one by Cabrera in 2008. No other franchise in baseball history has had three players accomplish this on their roster. The Cleveland Indians had two in the first two decades of the 20th century, went 88 years, and then produced a third. Cabrera was a five-time All-Star who hit .268 over his career with 189 home runs, spending his best years in Cleveland before moving on to Tampa Bay, Washington, and elsewhere. He was known for an excellent arm and consistent offense from the shortstop position.

 15. Eric Bruntlett (2B, PHI)   August 23, 2009

Last on the list. The game-ender. The one that closed the door.It was the bottom of the ninth at Citi Field in New York, Phillies leading the Mets 9-7, two on and nobody out. Jeff Francoeur lined one up the middle. Bruntlett was already moving toward second to cover the steal attempt   which put him in exactly the right spot at exactly the right moment. He caught the liner for out one, stepped on second base to force out the runner headed to third for out two, and the runner from first arrived right at him for out three. Game over.

 It was the first game-ending unassisted triple play in National League history, and only the second in major league history (Neun's in 1927 was the first). Bruntlett was a classic utility player   a .232 career hitter who was in the lineup that night because the Phillies had a specific defensive assignment for him. He hadn't started many games that year. The Phillies went on to win the National League pennant in 2009, losing the World Series to the Yankees in six games. Bruntlett's career ended after that season. He never played another regular-season game. His unassisted triple play in the final at-bat of a game is the last one recorded in major league history   more than 15 years ago now, and counting.

 Notable Patterns and Observations

Position Distribution
Eight of the 15 unassisted triple plays have been turned by shortstops, five by second basemen, and two by first basemen. No catcher, outfielder, pitcher, or third baseman has ever done it in a major league regular-season game. The geometry makes sense: middle infielders are the only players consistently positioned near second base with runners heading toward them from both sides.

The two first baseman plays   Burns in 1923 and Neun in 1927   required a different sequence. Both caught the ball, tagged a runner returning to first, then ran to step on second themselves. Each of them had to make a quick read that throwing to second was slower than running there. Both were right.

 Cleveland's Extraordinary Connection
The Cleveland franchise appears more than any other in this story, as both the team making the play and the team being victimized. Neal Ball (1909), Bill Wambsganss (1920), and Asdrubal Cabrera (2008) all turned unassisted triple plays while wearing Cleveland uniforms. Cleveland has also been on the wrong end of three unassisted triple plays. That combination   six total appearances in 15 plays   is unlike anything any other franchise can claim.

 The 1927 Back-to-Back
Jimmy Cooney turned his unassisted triple play on May 30, 1927. Johnny Neun turned his the next afternoon, May 31. Less than 24 hours apart. It hadn't happened in the first 50 years of the modern game, and then it happened two days in a row. No explanation for the clustering exists, beyond the randomness that governs these plays. The odds of it happening at all in a single century are low. The odds of two happening in two consecutive days are essentially incalculable.

 The Long Droughts
After Neun's walk-off play in 1927, baseball went more than 41 years   41 years, 1 month, and 30 days to be precise   before Ron Hansen turned the next one in 1968. That's the longest drought between unassisted triple plays in history. Hansen's play ended it, then another 24-year gap followed before Morandini in 1992. Seven of the 15 plays have happened since 1992. We are currently in a drought of more than 15 years since Bruntlett's in 2009, the longest in the post-expansion era.

 
The World Series Play
One, and only one, unassisted triple play has occurred in postseason play: Bill Wambsganss in Game 5 of the 1920 World Series. In more than a century of October baseball, with all the pressure and all the attention, Wambsganss stands alone. That game also featured the first World Series grand slam and the first pitcher home run in World Series history. Three all-time firsts in one game, in one afternoon in Cleveland.

More Rare Than a Perfect Game
There have been 24 perfect games thrown in major league history, and only 15 unassisted triple plays. Numbers like that are worth sitting with. A perfect game requires a pitcher and his defense to go out and execute flawlessly for 27 straight outs over nine innings. An unassisted triple play requires one fielder to be in the right spot at the exact right moment, with the ball hit just right, and the runners running. One is about sustained brilliance. The other is about an instant. Both are rare. But the unassisted triple play is rarer.

 What It Takes
The conditions are specific. No outs in the inning. Runners on first and second. Both runners moving on the pitch   usually a hit-and-run or double steal. The ball hit directly at a middle infielder near second base. Every one of those conditions has to line up simultaneously. Baseball researchers have analyzed thousands of games looking at how often those base-out states exist. Their conclusion: the probability of an unassisted triple play in any given plate appearance is astronomically small.

 Troy Tulowitzki said it fell right in his lap. He was right. All 15 of these plays fell right in someone's lap. But you still have to catch the ball, recognize the situation, and execute without hesitation. In four seconds. Nobody's ever gotten a second chance.

 ConclusionBBhe unassisted triple play sits in a category by itself. It's not something a player can practice or prepare for. There's no drill for it. It happens because the baserunners went, the pitch was a line drive, and the fielder happened to be in the path of all three outs. It's baseball at its most pure and its most random at the same time.

 Fifteen men have done it in more than 200,000 major league games. Eight of them were shortstops. Two ended games. One happened in the World Series. Two happened within 24 hours of each other. And right now, we're in the longest drought of unassisted triple plays in modern baseball history.

 The next one could happen in any game. Nobody knows when. Nobody knows who. That's the thing about this play: it doesn't announce itself. It just happens, fast as a line drive, and then it's in the record books.

Keep watching.