Now that Albert Pujols has reached 400 home runs in under 10 full seasons, the attention focused on him individually rather than as the leader of a contending team is on the possibility of his winning the Triple Crown in batting.
There has been no Triple Crown winner in the majors since Carl Yastrzemski with Boston in 1967 and none in the National League since the Cardinals' Joe Medwick in 1937. And Yastrzemski has something of an asterisk beside his because he tied with Minnesota's Harmon Killebrew for the home run title.
One of the interesting aspects of Pujols' quest is that if he does win the Triple Crown (highest average, most home runs, most runs batted in), he won't be having his best season statistically in any of those categories.
Pujols was hitting .320 through Friday. His highest average was .359 in 2003 when he won the league batting title.
He had 35 home runs through Friday and isn't likely to reach 49, his high for home runs in 2006. And he had 94 RBIs, well short of his 137 in 2006.
In the Year of the Pitcher, his numbers are all very laudable, but the point is that, historically, many of the Triple Crowns have been won when the winners didn't have their best statistical seasons in any categories.
Of the 13 Triple Crowns captured since the two leagues began playing World Series in 1903, only two were achieved when a player had his best seasons in all three categories. One was Medwick's when he had 31 homers, 154 RBIs and a .374 average in 1937. Yastrzemski had the other with 44 homers, 121 RBIs and a .326 average in 1967.
Boston's Ted Williams, for instance, twice won the Triple Crown — in 1942 and 1947 — and on neither occasion did he achieve his single-season highs in any category.
Williams' best were a .406 average in 1941 and 43 homers and 159 RBIs, both in 1949.
In the National League, the Cardinals' Rogers Hornsby won his second Triple Crown in 1925 and didn't have any career highs in any category. In 1922, when he won his first, he had single-season bests in home runs (42) and RBIs (152), but his best average was .424, in a non-Triple Crown year.
Philadelphia Phillies slugger Chuck Klein, the only other NL Triple Crown winner, had better seasons in every category than he did in 1933, when he won the Triple Crown.
The same could be said in the American League for the New York Yankees' Lou Gehrig in 1934, Jimmie Foxx of the Philadelphia A's in 1933 and Ty Cobb of Detroit in 1909. Cobb won the Triple Crown with nine homers in 1909. His career high was 12.
NEWS ITEM: Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina polished off a career best when he started 26 consecutive games behind the plate before getting a rest Wednesday night in Pittsburgh.
HUMMEL'S TAKE: Molina could start as many as 144 games this season, which would be the most by a Cardinals catcher since Ted Simmons started 148 in 1975. Two years before that, Simmons started a remarkable 151 games, when Busch Stadium had the heat-seeking artificial turf, and played 161 games total that year, counting excursions to the outfield and to first base.
Simmons had one streak of 57 consecutive games started behind the plate in 1973 and another of 47. And he managed to hit .310 with 91 RBIs.
NEWS ITEM: Philadelphia's Roy Halladay entered the weekend leading the National League in strikeouts at 186. Nothing unusual there. Halladay fanned more than 200 batters three times at Toronto
HUMMEL'S TAKE: What is unusual was that Halladay also was leading the league in hits allowed at 187. It seems incongruous for a pitcher to lead, essentially, in non-contact and contact. As often as not, the strikeout leader also allows the fewest hits, not the most.
According to Post-Dispatch research, a pitcher hasn't led the league in both strikeouts and hits allowed since 1983. Then, it was a Hall of Famer who did it, albeit a fading Hall of Famer.
At age 38, Steve Carlton of the Phillies was 15-16 but led in strikeouts at 275 and in hits allowed at 277
The year before that, Carlton also led in both categories, although he won 23 games in 1982.
How to explain Halladay's quinella? He's leading in innings pitched — and fewest walks per nine innings at 1.1.
NEWS ITEM: It was revealed last week that the Pittsburgh Pirates, with one of baseball's lowest payrolls, made $29.4 million in profit in 2007 and 2008, with the help of revenue sharing. The club already had admitted to reporters that it had made $5.7 million last year. And it was revealed that the Florida Marlins, who had a league-low $24.8 million payroll in 2008, had a net operating income of $37.84 million that year.
HUMMEL'S TAKE: With baseball's labor agreement to expire after next season, don't think the teams that are contributing heavily to revenue sharing — teams like the New York Yankees and Mets, the Boston Red Sox and Chicago Cubs — won't be having second thoughts about plowing so much of their money into revenue sharing and then have teams that receive it, like Florida and Pittsburgh, turn better profits than some of the teams that are contributing.
Hard to tell how the fans in those two areas feel about it, although some 37,000 showed up in Pittsburgh to watch the Cardinals — for three games. The largest crowd was 13,202.
The Pirates have spent money on a new academy in the Dominican Republic and have spent heavily to sign high draft picks over the last few years. And the Marlins have said they need to pay off franchise debt in order to qualify for a loan that will help finance their new Miami ballpark, which will open in 2012. But Florida already had been rebuked by Major League Baseball last winter for not appropriately spending its revenue-sharing money.
The revenue-sharing money was supposed to be earmarked for competitive balance, and the only team the Pirates have competed with lately is the Cardinals, whom they beat two out of three last week. Pittsburgh is headed for between 100 and 110 losses and already has clinched an 18th straight losing season.
The Marlins have been competitive, but the point is that the larger market clubs probably don't see the need to finance the smaller market teams if such teams don't assign a lot of that money to payroll. Look for a lower dollar figure for revenue sharing in the next Basic Agreement.
NEWS ITEM: Johnny Cueto pitched for Cincinnati against the Chicago Cubs on Friday night.
HUMMEL'S TAKE: This means that Busch Stadium fans will have only loose-lipped Cincinnati second baseman Brandon Phillips to kick around, so to speak, next weekend. Cueto, who delivered enough savage leg kicks during a brawl to the head of Cardinals catcher Jason LaRue to cause him a concussion, will not start in the three-game series for the Reds.
Manager Dusty Baker admitted to reporters the other day he had been wrestling with this dilemma. "He's going to have to pitch against them sometime," said Baker. "They say time heals all wounds. Maybe it doesn't."
NEWS ITEM: According to STATS LLC, the Atlanta Braves led the National League in comeback wins before the weekend with 39 while the Reds were second at 36. The Yankees led the American League with 40.
Any wonder that all three teams were in first place? The Cardinals, meanwhile, had only 24. And they were not in first place.
