They're the most exciting plays in baseball--and they're going extinct.
Andy Pages emerged as an unlikely World Series hero last year when he sprinted 121 feet across the outfield to make a spectacular catch and keep the Los Angeles Dodgers alive.
But had that decisive Game 7 been played a decade earlier, the outcome might have been entirely different. The ball probably would have soared over Pages’ head—and the Toronto Blue Jays would be entering 2026 as champions.
The reason is a subtle, but fundamental change in the way baseball teams organize their outfielders—one that is dramatically rewriting box scores around the majors.
While home runs continue to soar out of stadiums at near-record levels, doubles and triples are disappearing from the sport at an alarming rate.
Games in 2025 featured an average of just 3.19 doubles, the fewest in an uninterrupted campaign since 1992. Nearly 800 two-baggers have vanished from the game over the course of this decade.
And if doubles are an endangered species, triples are practically extinct. Ahead of the 2026 season, they have fallen to their lowest rate in MLB history, leaving longtime fans wondering whatever happened to triple merchants such as Willie Wilson, Garry Templeton and George Brett.
All told, the combined MLB average in doubles and triples per game in 2025 sank to its lowest point over a full season since 1989, leading some in the league wondering whether to intervene.
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https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/mlb/they-re-the-most-exciting-plays-in-baseball-and-they-re-going-extinct/ar-AA1ZiVCE
Draw a line across the outfield that a fielder can’t stand behind? ((big eye roll))
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