The top storylines heading into the second half of the season - ESPN

Baseball: The top storylines heading into the second half of the season

Can Senor Sluggo win a triple crown?

The last National Leaguer to win the triple crown was Ducky Medwick in 1937. Medwick also led the league in hits and doubles that year, had 39 more RBI than the second-highest guy, and was the MVP. Astoundingly, he did not get the most first place votes on the MVP balloting! That went to catcher Gabby Hartnett of the Cubs, who only played about half a season, and came to bat only 356 times! Medwick was hurt by his team's performance. The Cardinals had the two best hitters in the league (Medwick and Big Jawn Mize), but had a lot of holes in their roster and finished a weak fourth overall.

Medwick did not win the triple crown outright. He tied Mel Ott for the homer lead. The last National Leaguer to win the triple crown outright was Chuck Klein in 1933 (with only 28 homers!), and he did not win the MVP at all. He was the top vote-getter among hitters, but was edged out by King Carl Hubbell, who won 23 for the Giants. Not only did Klein not win the MVP, but he was promptly rewarded for his triple crown by being traded to the Cubs. Klein's massive stats in the 1929-1933 era were discounted by his contemporaries because he played in Baker Bowl, the Coors of its time. In 1932, for example, Klein hit 38 homers altogether - 29 at home, 9 on the road. In 1933, his triple crown year, he had 20 at home, 8 on the road. In that five year period, he hit 122 homers at home, only 58 on the road.

His road homer totals in his last three years in Philadelphia were 9-9-8, so he would have been expected to hit about 20 homers per year outside of Philly. When he left the Phillies after the 1933 season, that's exactly what he did. The next four years his homer totals were 20-21-25-15, and his batting average hovered right around .300. He was a good hitter, but those were obviously not HOF numbers, nor were his road numbers in the previous years, but Klein eventually got into the Hall, presumably because the massive numbers he put up in Baker Bowl were being evaluated by future generations unaware of the proper context in which to view them. (Although never elected on the main ballot, Klein was allowed in the HOF's servant's entrance by the dreaded Veteran's Committee.)

The Hall will have to deal with similar situations in the future in evaluating the careers of Larry Walker and Todd Helton. Outside of Colorado, both of them were .280-.290 hitters with mid-20s homer power. Matt Holliday didn't spend enough time in Coors to build up any eye-catching career numbers, so his assessment is not a HOF matter, but his performance with the A's this year is not at all unexpected. His lifetime batting average on the road is .281, with about 20 homers per 162 games, and he has continued to hit at a VERY similar pace this year. He is fortunate enough that the As were willing to pay him $13 million per year to do that.