Triple Crown: 1878 Paul Hines

Winning the Triple Crown is one of Major League baseball’s rarest hitting feats. Depending on what list you reference, it’s only been accomplished 15 to 18 times.  Nonetheless, winning the Triple Crown makes for a great APBA card. Over the next few months, I’d like to explore these 18 monster seasons, starting with Paul Hines’s Triple Crown winning season of 1878 for the Providence Grays. Hines was considered one of the top stars of the early days of professional baseball.

Paul Hines was the first player to win the Triple Crown. He also might have been the first player to execute an unassisted triple play. However, the triple play is still debated because it was accomplished from centerfield. In a May, 1878 contest, the bases were loaded when the batter hit a low liner behind shortstop. Hines sprinted in to snag the liner and then dashed to third to record the second and third outs. The runner from second, attempting to score, had passed third when Hines tagged the base. In 1878, if a runner had passed a proceeding base without tagging up, he could be put out by touching that base. Yet, there’s still controversy. There were some reports that Hines threw to his second baseman to record the third out. However, maybe that was only done to be sure the final out was called.  Whatever the case, it was a tremendous play.

From the statistics available, I’ve done my best to recreate Paul Hines’s 1878 APBA card. Of course, some statistics either weren’t kept in the 19th century or were poorly recorded. A good example is base on balls. Frequently, walks were recorded as hits. That’s why you’ll notice this card has no 14s. Even so, this card should produce a .361 average. Stolen bases were another poorly kept stat. For some seasons, Hines has stolen bases recorded. For other seasons, they aren’t. This card reflects my best informed prediction on how many bases Hines would have stolen. In the early days of professional baseball, teams played between 60-85 games. In 1878, Providence played 62 games.  Though only 38% of today’s totals, Hines’s at-bats could be doubled to reflect a card that would produce a .358 with 8 homers and 100 RBI. Hines’s .358 average beat Abner Dalrymple’s (.354) by four points. Hines’s four homer bested Charley Jones by one. Finally, Hines’s 50 RBI took the top spot over Lew Brown by seven. Paul Hines followed up his historic 1878 season by winning a second batting title in 1879.

Hines was born in the Washington D.C. area in 1855. He started his professional career in 1872 with the Washington Nationals and ended in 1891 with the Washington Statesmen. Overall, he played for ten different teams. Throughout his career, Hines was one of the better players in professional baseball. He ended his career with 2,133 hits and a career .302 average. Between 1875-1880, Hines had more hits than any player in the National League. It’s likely he would have reached 3,000 hits if teams would have played more games in the early days of professional baseball. That, coupled with the fact that the Hall of Fame didn’t start inducting players until 45 years after his retirement, has kept Hines outside of Cooperstown. Paul Hines is one of the two players to win the Triple Crown who isn’t enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Based on modern Sabermetrics, Paul Hines’s candidacy should be reconsidered. His next chance for election is in 2021 through the Early Baseball Era Committee.