In 2016 I wrote that the Orioles were setting “a fewest-triples record that may never be broken” by hitting only 6 triples in a full major league season. It was broken the next year by the Blue Jays, who hit only 5 triples. We are actually in a golden age of not hitting triples. Nine teams in the modern era of MLB have finished the season with ten triples or fewer. Of those nine teams, six have been since 2022, with three this year alone. The 2025 Mariners stole 161 bases. Not a slow team! But they only hit nine triples.

Philip Roth, in The Great American Novel, gives one of his characters a multipage monologue on the greatness of triples. He would be mad now, about a lot of things probably. Speaking of old novelists named Philip, I discovered today that Philip Pullman has, after six years of silence, finally released the final book in the Lyra Silvertongue series. They have been getting longer and less wonderful. And slower, like a team that never hits triples. But I’m glad this exists. The Golden Compass remains the only truly great contemporary work of fantasy I’ve ever read.