Baseball: BASEBALL TRIVIA QUESTION #13: 20 HR's and 20 Triples

A feat which is far rarer than many might think is hitting 20 triples in a season. It has only been done about 100 or 120 times, and from eyeballing the list, I'd say about half of those were before 1900, when they had really ludicrously shaped parks.

As you'd expect, the players from 1900-1920 rarely or never hit 20 HR's in a season, much less in the one in which they hit 20+ triples. But I found TWO guys--one in each league--who hit 20+ triples and 20+ HR's in the same season, after World War Two.

Here are your clues:

1. Both men are in the Hall of Fame.

2. You can make rational arguments for both men as the greatest players of all time at their respective positions. Many will agree with you about one, or about both.

3. The National Leaguer did it in 1957, with 20 triples and 35 HR's.

4. The American Leaguer did it in 1979, with 20 triples and 23 HR's.

5. Both men played, at the time in question, in a home park that was famously conducive to triples.

6. Both men are still living.


So, without Google or any other cyber or written resources....

NAME THEM.

OK, OK, time for more clues:

1. The 1957 player played in what was, until its demise in 1964, by far the most famous N.L. ballpark: The Polo Grounds.

2. The 1979 player played in what I believe was simply called Royals Stadium. (Now, there's a tough question, huh? Royals Stadium. Hall of Famer. Arguably the greatest player of all time at his position. And I'll add that it's NOT Steve Balboni, Willie Wilson, Daryl Porter or U.L. Washington. )

B.H.N.

Couldn't have even guessed without the Big Clues, but I'm going to say Willie Mays and George Brett. (baseball history not my forte)

My second guess for the Royals would be Cookie Rojas.
-or that game show dude's kid.


[Edited on 3/31/06 by yeahright]

C O R R E C T on both scores.

For the record, I don't buy Brett as the greatest 3B ever, nor do I think it's a close call. I think this is a position where one man--Mike Schmidt--stands clearly above all others. It's also by no means clear to me that Brett should go ahead of Eddie Mathews, though I probably would put Brett at #2 by a few whiskers over Mathews.

As for Mays, picking someone as the greatest CF in major league history is such an enormous compliment... no matter whom you pick. If you pick Mays, for instance, you are "only" saying that he was better than Ty Cobb, better than Joe DiMaggio, better than Tris Speaker and, oh, yes, better than Mickey Mantle. In my opinion, all five of those players are among the 10 greatest non-steroid-using players of all time, so it's kind of tough to pick a #1 out of the five. Whomever you choose, let's just say that the greatest CF of all time was one holy hell of a ballplayer, huh?

[Edited on 4/1/06 by BaseballHistoryNut]