Sport-Blog.com

Written by James Fohl

When you are watching a game of baseball, whether at the stadium behind home plate or in your favorite lounge chair at home behind your wide screen television set, you always see a series of incredible events that unfold.

Whether they are a home run at the end of the ninth ending that ties a game, or a grand slam that clears the bases, the game of baseball always has something that can really add suspense to the game, and overall excite the fans of the game.

One of the most amazing plays in baseball to me is something known as a triple play. A triple play
is when a team manages to get three players out on a single play. While double plays (when a team
manages to get two players out on a single play) are fairly common in the game of baseball, triple
plays are quite rare.

Certain circumstances must exist in order for a triple play to occur. The first of these circumstances
is the fact that there must be no outs in the inning. After having no outs in the inning, the opposing team must have players situated on at least two bases. (Ex; first and second base) Next, a player must hit the ball in a manner that allows the receiver of the ball access to other players.

For example, the perfect scenario for a triple play would be no outs, players on first and second, and the batter just hits a ground ball to the shortstop. He would tag the runner going to third, toss to the second baseman, and the second baseman would throw the ball to first base for the third and final out.

While it sounds easy in theory, a triple play is actually quite hard to pull off because of the limited
amount of time available to the players. Although double plays are quite common, it still takes a great amount of effort in order to successfully pull one off. Pulling a triple play off, on the other hand involves a whole extra out and does not add any time. The timing factor is one of the primary reasons why; that even when the circumstances are right for a triple play, it just does not happen because the batter is able to get to first base on time.

Triple plays were a lot more common back in the early days of baseball than they are today. Back in the early half of the 20th century, games were actually played that involved more than one triple play in a game. Today it is something to see a Major League professional ball team pull off more than one triple play in a season. Some teams, such as the Pittsburgh Pirates have not pulled off a triple play in over ten years.

So the next time you are watching professional ball players, keep an eye out to see if the circumstances exist for a triple play. It is really exciting to see when a team looks like they are pulling ahead with two players on base and zero outs to totally just get annihilated with a triple play made by the opposing team.