July 30, 1968: Washington Senators shortstop Ron Hansen makes first unassisted triple play in 41 years

Sportswriter Charles Dryden’s famous quote “Washington—First in war, first in peace, last in the American League”1 certainly described the situation in July 1968 as the Washington Senators visited the Cleveland Indians for a two-game series at Cleveland Stadium.

Even after their 4-2 win in the series opener on July 29, with the go-ahead run coming on shortstop Ron Hansen’s seventh inning home run off the left-field foul pole screen,2 the perpetual bottom-dwelling Senators were 36-62, 25 games behind the AL-leading Detroit Tigers. Cleveland (57-47), led by first-year manager Alvin Dark, shared second place with the Baltimore Orioles, seven games back.3

The Senators were not a box-office draw—the first game’s attendance was 5,807 and the July 30 game drew 5,937. Yes, these were Monday and Tuesday nights, but games the next two nights against Baltimore pulled almost twice the crowds to cavernous Cleveland Stadium.

Those 5,937 fans at the Washington-Cleveland series finale not only enjoyed an overwhelming home-team victory, they witnessed the rarest event in baseball—an unassisted triple play.4

All-Star Sam McDowell (10-9, 1.65 ERA) took the mound for Cleveland, working a three-up, three-down inning to get the game started.5

Bruce Howard (1-5, 4.28 ERA), nearing the end of his six-year major league career, also had a scoreless first inning—with a lot of help from his shortstop, Hansen.6

Cleveland put its first two runners on against Howard, as Dave Nelson singled and Russ Snyder walked. It brought up catcher Joe Azcue, like his batterymate McDowell an AL All-Star in 1968.

The hit-and-run sign was flashed and the runners took off on a 3-and-2 pitch.7 Azcue hit a line drive right at Hansen. He grabbed Azcue’s liner, stepped on second to double off Nelson, and tagged Snyder, who was running toward him.

The inning was over. Hansen, in his 11th big-league season, had completed the majors’ ninth-ever unassisted triple play—and the first in 41 years. The previous one was turned by the Tigers’ Johnny Neun on May 31, 1927—also against Cleveland.

Given that the play was turned by a visiting player it is not surprising that the print media did not record much crowd reaction.8

The Senators got on the board in the top of the second with a leadoff home run from “Capital Punisher” Frank Howard—his second of the series, third of the season against McDowell, and 30th of the year. McDowell allowed two more runners on a walk and his own throwing error. He escaped the inning when Hansen struck out and Bruce Howard fouled out.

McDowell admitted after the game that he didn’t know how to handle Frank Howard, whose three hits made him 7-for-9 in 1968 against his fellow All-Star. “If there was a situation with the bases loaded in a close game I might even walk Howard intentionally,” McDowell said.9

Washington held its 1-0 lead through the top of the fourth. McDowell struck out Hansen again to end the top of the fourth.

Cleveland finally broke through in the bottom half. Snyder and Duke Sims singled. Lee Maye hit a two-out double to score both of them, putting Cleveland ahead 2-1.

All McDowell allowed in the top of the fifth was a single.

The wheels came off for Washington in the bottom of the fifth. Howard allowed a double to Larry Brown, a single to McDowell, and a run-scoring double to Nelson, giving Cleveland a 3-1 lead and triggering a pitching change to Bill Haywood.

The 31-year-old Haywood, who had served in the US Marines for four years before signing with the Senators in 1964,10 had made his major-league debut two days earlier.11 Snyder greeted him by walking to load the bases. Although Azcue struck out, a passed ball during the at-bat allowed Cleveland’s fourth run to score.

Sims walked to load the bases again. A three-run double by José Cardenal pushed the score to 7-1. The inning’s scoring ended with Maye’s RBI single and an 8-1 Cleveland advantage.

Haywood finally got the last two outs on a groundout and a strikeout. His sixth inning was much less eventful, as he pitched around a leadoff walk to McDowell and recorded a scoreless frame.

All the Senators managed in the sixth and seventh were singles by Frank Howard and Mike Epstein (pinch-hitting for Haywood). McDowell struck out Hansen for the third time.

Cleveland added two more runs in the seventh inning against Washington’s third pitcher, Bob Humphreys. A veteran reliever who had pitched over 100 innings for the Senators in the previous two years, he was making his 32nd appearance of the year. Humphreys walked Sims, then allowed a run-scoring double to Cardenal, who took third on a throwing error by Hansen. Tommy Harper’s sacrifice fly brought the score to 10-1, Cleveland.

Washington put two runners on in the eighth with Howard’s one-out single and a walk to Ken McMullen. But McDowell finished his work with a strikeout and a groundout to hold the score.

Humphreys also settled down in his second inning of work, only allowing a walk to Snyder in the bottom of the eighth.

Mike Paul relieved McDowell in the top of the ninth. Hansen’s fourth strikeout of the day and two fly outs closed out the game.

Afterward the media attention focused on Hansen, given the rarity of unassisted triple plays and length of time since the last one—”41 years, 50,000 games, and 2.7 million putouts.”12 “I didn’t know that,” Hansen said, referring to the time since the last such play, “but I did know there were three out.”

“It was one of the best plays I ever made in terms of all the putouts,” he added. “But it wasn’t difficult. In fact, it was made to order. I just happened to be in the right place at the right time.”13 Right time, right place, indeed—Ron Hansen didn’t make it to the Baseball Hall of Fame—but his glove did.14

Hansen’s unassisted triple play was part of a mixed but eventful week for the 30-year-old infielder, whose big-league career eventually spanned nearly 1,400 games over 15 seasons and included AL Rookie of the Year honors in 1960 and four seasons with MVP votes.

His home run on July 29 had put Washington ahead to stay. Alongside the triple play in the July 30 box score were an error and the third four-strikeout game of his career.15

A night later in Detroit, Hansen struck out twice more, then was pulled for a pinch-hitter. A walk in his first plate appearance on August 1 ended Hansen’s strikeout streak, and then he hit a grand slam off Detroit’s Pat Dobson his next time up.

That was a fitting way to end his Senators tenure—on August 2 he was traded to the White Sox for Tim Cullen. That would not be particularly remarkable except that he had been acquired from the White Sox before the season in a trade that included Cullen.16

It was the first time in baseball history that the same two players were traded for each other twice in the same season.17 Perhaps the White Sox were expecting Hansen back—upon arrival he found his locker as he had left it, complete with his 1967 uniform.18

Hansen’s play added another chapter to Cleveland’s odds-defying history with the game’s rarest occurrence. As of 2022, there have been only 16 unassisted triple plays in major-league history—and six have involved Cleveland’s AL franchise.

When the club was known as the Cleveland Naps, shortstop Neal Ball made the first one of the twentieth century, against the Boston Red Sox in 1909. Second baseman Bill Wambsganss turned the second in Game Five of the 1920 World Series, against the Brooklyn Robins.19 Like Hansen’s play, both involved the most frequent setting for unassisted triple plays: middle infielders catching a line drive, stepping on second, and tagging the runner coming from first.20

In the 1920s, two AL teams had unassisted triple plays against the Indians. Red Sox first baseman George Burns turned one on September 14, 1923. Four seasons later, Detroit’s Neun preserved a 1-0 win over Cleveland by making the last three outs of the game with his triple play.21 Neun’s was the last in the majors until happenstance—a pitcher struggling in the first inning, a hit-and-run play, and a line drive—gave Hansen the chance to make history in 1968.

Cleveland’s unassisted triple play saga had yet another twist in the twenty-first century. Hansen, serving as an advance scout for the Philadelphia Phillies, was in Cleveland when Indians shortstop Asdrúbal Cabrera turned what was then tallied as the 14th unassisted triple play in major league history in May 2008—another 40-year span.

Acknowledgments

This article was fact-checked by Larry DeFillipo and copy-edited by Len Levin. The author thanks Steven Weiner, who connected her with Phil Wood, native Washingtonian and former radio/television sports-talk host, who provided anecdotes about Ron Hansen.

Sources

In addition to the references cited in the Notes, the author consulted data from Baseball-Reference and Retrosheet:

https://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/CLE/CLE196807300.shtml 

https://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1968/B07300CLE1968.htm

Notes

1 Baseball Biography, “Charles Dryden,” Baseballbiography.com, accessed November 30, 2022, https://baseballbiography.com/charles-dryden/. “Baseball Notes,” Washington Post, June 27, 1904: 8.

2 Jim Schlemmer, “Aw Nats, Again!,” Akron Beacon Journal, July 30, 1968: B-2.

3 The Indians slipped as low as fifth place during the remainder of the season, but finished third. The Senators, to the surprise of no one, finished 10th and last.

4 SABR Triple Play Database, accessed November 30, 2022, https://sabr.org/tripleplays.

5 McDowell had been an All-Star in 1965 and 1966, and would be again in 1969-1971. He pitched one inning in the 1968 All-Star Game, allowing one hit and collecting three strikeouts.

6 Bruce Howard had been traded from Baltimore to the Senators on June 15. He pitched in four more games for the Senators in 1968, appeared in 26 minor- and instructional-league games in 1969, then retired.

7 Jim Schlemmer, “Hansen Travels Alone into History,” Akron Beacon Journal, July 31, 1968: F2.

8 Merrell Whittlesey, “Hansen’s Week—TP, 6Ks, Grand-Slam, Trade,” The Sporting News, August 17, 1968: 9. This is in contrast to the story told by Neal Ball’s great-niece regarding his 1909 unassisted triple play—she recalled hearing that so many hats were thrown on the field that the game was delayed 20 minutes. Patrick Dubuque, “Cold Takes: The Aesthetics of the Unassisted Triple Play,” baseballprospectus.com, November 15, 2016, https://www.baseballprospectus.com/news/article/30706/cold-takes-the-aesthetics-of-the-unassisted-triple-play/.

9 Schlemmer, “Hansen Travels Alone.”

10 “Bill Haywood Wins Highest UNC Award,” Rocky Mount (North Carolina) Telegram, June 4, 1964: D1.

11 Bob Moskowitz, “The Way the Ball Bounces,” Newport News Daily Press, July 30, 1968: 14. In his debut, Haywood had pitched one inning and was charged with a blown save on an unearned run. He made the only 14 appearances of his major-league career in 1968, going into the books with no won-lost record and a 4.63 ERA in 23⅓ innings pitched.

12 “Hansen Registers Unassisted Triple Play,” Lima (Ohio) News, July 31, 1968: 28. The papers in 1968 reported this as the eighth unassisted triple play, as they did not include the May 8, 1878, play by Paul Hines.

13 “Hansen Registers.” He was in the right place at the right time, but perhaps with the wrong glove. “Ron endorsed MacGregor gloves, and that night he got a call from his MacGregor rep who wanted to congratulate him on the play, and explain that the company was planning an all-out ad campaign featuring Ron. When the guy finally stopped to breathe, Ron had to tell him that he wasn’t using a MacGregor glove that day—he was using Spalding. So much for his endorsement deal.” Phil Wood to Steven Weiner, email communication, December 5, 2022.

14 “Ron Hansen Unassisted Triple Play Glove,” Baseballhall.org, accessed January 24, 2023, https://collection.baseballhall.org/objects/2205/ron-hansen-unassisted-triple-play-glove.

15 He also struck out four times on September 23, 1960, and July 12, 1964.

16 The complete trade on February 13, 1968 was Hansen, Dennis Higgins, and Steve Jones to the Senators for Cullen, Buster Narum, and Bob Priddy from the White Sox.

17 Jimmy Keenan, “Ron Hansen,” SABR Baseball Biography Project, accessed January 23, 2023, https://sabr.org/bioproj/person/ron-hansen/.

18 The only difference was that the team had added the Illinois Sesquicentennial patch to his 1967 uniform. Phil Wood to Steven Weiner, email communication, December 5, 2022.

19 Associated Press, “Tribe’s Cabrera Turns 14th Unassisted Triple Play in MLB History,” ESPN.com, May 12, 2008, https://www.espn.com/mlb/news/story?id=3393381.

20 For example, Cabrera’s and Eric Bruntlett’s (August 23, 2009) were similar plays. See Bill Marston’s award-winning poster presentation at SABR 50, available for download at https://sabr.org/latest/sabr-50-asel-marston-win-2022-convention-presentation-awards/. 

21 Search Results for “Unassisted Triple Play,” Nationalpastime.com, accessed January 23, 2023. nationalpastime.com/site/index.php?query=unassisted+triple+play&action=simple_search%22.