The Official Site of Major League Baseball: News: Cabrera turns unassisted triple play

Video: Cabrera turns unassisted triple play

It's one of the rarest events in baseball, rarer than a perfect game, but it's so routine-looking, and happens so quickly, that it seems of no special importance.

There have been 14 in MLB history, compared to 17 perfect games.

The rarest event that I can immediately recall is a 7-hit game in regulation. In the entire 20th century, only one man ever collected seven hits in a major league game without extra innings. Rennie Stennett of the Pirates, a career .274 hitter, did it in 1975 in a 22-0 victory over the Cubs. That game also holds the record for the most lopsided shutout in history. (Cleveland tied the record against the Yankees in 2004.)

The 7-for-7 feat was also accomplished once in the 19th century in a regulation game, by Wilbert "Uncle Robbie" Robinson in a 25-4 game in 1892. Although Robbie is a Hall of Famer, that honor was not accorded him for his hitting, but for his accomplishments as an innovative catcher for the "Old Orioles" for a decade, and as a manager of the Dodgers for 18 seasons.

As a hitter, his adjusted OPS was below 100 fourteen times in his seventeen-year career, meaning that he was almost always below the league average in batting productivity. His lifetime average was .273, and he did no better (.267) the year he went 7-for-7. In fact, he hit only .251 in his other games that year, but that one game raised his average 16 points!