The 70-70 Club

When he was all done menacing pitchers, Ty Cobb was the all-time leader in hits and runs, total bases, extra-base hits and times on base.   A few years later, he would even get to claim pole position among the inaugural Hall of Fame class, with his 98.2% of the vote topping the positive responses for Babe Ruth, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson.  Cobb was (and still is) a pre-eminent part of the game’s lore, both statistical and anecdotal, known as much for the numbers he accrued as by the approach – defiant, combative, unquenchably driven – that helped deliver the success.  Once upon a time, Babe Ruth named Cobb as his left fielder for his personal all-time all-star team; a half-century later, Cobb made the roster for MLB’s All Century squad.  Even today, nearly 120 years after he debuted in the big leagues (and collected his first knock, a double), Cobb presents a landmark of achievement, a numerical beacon that we can always sight and use for exploration when we’re considering on-field greatness, enjoying the more trivial, or using the numbers to connect current ballplayers with the thousands that came before.  

By counting numbers, Cobb’s most prodigious season came in 1911, when he would score 148 runs, collect 248 hits (including 47 doubles and 24 triples), drive in 127 runs and amass 367 total bases.  At the time, all those figures represented career bests; by the time he played his final game in 1928, they still had that designation.  In that season, Cobb also established an unbreakable high mark (for him) with 79 extra-base hits and blazed across the basepaths for more stolen bases (83) than anyone else in either the AL or NL.  With these last two numbers, Cobb became the first player ever to produce at least 70 extra-base hits and at least 70 stolen bases in a season.  

By the time the 1980s closed shop, Cobb’s stat supremacy had mostly vanished, his all-time leads in hits, total bases, extra-base hits and times on base having been erased (he did maintain his #1 status in runs scored, until Rickey Henderson eclipsed that in 2001).  He also had surrendered his solo residency in the 70-70 club:  not to an all-timer like Pete Rose or Stan Musial or Willie Mays or Hank Aaron or any of the other very few who pushed Cobb down on the leaderboards he had once so thoroughly commanded.  Instead, Cobb had to accommodate a much lesser-acclaimed talent who, in 1984, was mostly handling the leadoff spot for the Philadelphia Phillies:  Juan Samuel.

Samuel – 23 years and 116 days old for Opening Day in the ‘84 season – was just getting started in his career, the owner of 71 plate appearances after a late-August callup for the ’83 NL East champs.  Serving as a pinch-runner/pinch-hitter, he even saw action in four postseason games as Philadelphia ultimately dropped the World Series in five games to Baltimore. By the time the next spring was in full swing, Samuel was ready to run and swing a path toward Cobb.  

For the first month of the 1984 campaign, there was little in the swing to portend a meet-up with the Hall of Famer.  The basepaths were a different story, as Samuel ended April with a Major League-leading 16 thefts.  The next few months saw the second baseman start lashing out and continue running free – May, June and July each saw the rookie collect double digits in both extra-base hits and steals.  By the morning of August 1, Samuel had – in essentially two-thirds of a season – 46 combined doubles/triples/homers and 49 stolen bases.  His 49 nabs led the NL, his 14 triples were second most in the league and his 23 two-base hits tied for the fourth most in the Senior Circuit.  And perhaps most amazingly, he was creating all of this offensive havoc despite fanning 100 times (the most in the NL) and drawing only 20 walks.  If no one said he was the reincarnation of Cobb, few could take their eyes away from this blend of pop and speed.  Hitting at or near the top of the order for a club that was second in the league in runs scored meant lots of opportunities to get into the box and take his cuts and then see what else might be offered in the tantalizing spaces between first and second or second and third (no steals of home that season, alas).

There is a bliss in following such a ballplayer.  Sure, there is respect and admiration for a batter working the count, patiently proving to the foe 60 feet, six inches away that he is in control of what he wants, knows what he wants, can recognize it as such, and only then be willing to take a swing.  This approach kind of fits comfortably within the overall pace of the game:  the pause ……….action-pause………….action rhythm behind games for more than a century and a half.  But even a nice and recognizable tempo is sometimes aided by the injection of something different, something more kinetic and less measured, an abandon allowed to initiate the action and keep it flowing.  Alfonso Soriano’s 2002 season might be evaluated as less valuable offensively as Brian Giles’ that year, but the adrenaline-meter burst through the sky that season for the Yankees second baseman, a dervish of action that could enthrall from the moment he stepped into the box.  So too, could this be said, for Samuel in 1984.

Ultimately, Samuel’s successful match-game with Cobb would require all 162 regular season contests:  on September 30, in the second game of a doubleheader, #8 came to the plate to lead off the sixth and did what he had done 35 other times – swing and moments later arrive at second base.  With the two-bagger, Samuel had his 70th extra-base hit to accompany his 72 steals.  Of course, there was no stoppage of play for this occasion, no tears of joy to wipe away in awe of the feat – just a simple moment at the end of a season that connected a rookie to one of the greatest offensive forces ever.  

Samuel did make his mark that year, undoubtedly:  his 19 triples (tied for the Major League lead) were the most by a rookie since 1926; his 72 steals (second most in the Majors) were the most by a rookie in the modern era; he was entrancing enough to pull one first place vote away from Dwight Gooden in Rookie of the Year voting, keeping New York’s teenager from being a unanimous selection.  He set an NL record for at-bats and led the Majors with 168 strikeouts – at the time, a top-10 all-time mark.  In 1984, as a 23-year-old rookie, Juan Samuel had made an extraordinary imprint within the game.  And he had – hidden within all of the more fan-fared numbers – done something that only Ty Cobb had ever done.  

Cobb and Samuel would have the place all to themselves for almost 40 years, finally opening the door for another entrant in 2023:  NL MVP Ronald Acuña, Jr., who swiped 73 bags and tallied 80 extra-base hits.  The game’s evolution and recent rules changes seem designed to produce more occupants – just this past season, Elly De La Cruz fell three steals shy of joining the trio; Shohei Ohtani looks capable of practically anything on the diamond.  Or maybe we’ll be set for a while; as Joaquin Andujar said, “You never know.”  That’s part of the allure of any season – six months to watch stories evolve and perhaps grow their tendrils to meet the past.  Sometimes a burgeoning or established great solidifies his connection to the immortals.  Sometimes a rookie crosses decades to mirror one of the very best ever. 

Thanks to Baseball Reference and its extraordinary research database, Stathead, for help in assembling this piece.

Thanks also to Retrosheet  – all of the mentions of league leaders on a specific day of the season come from that site’s essential collection of information.

Special thanks to Cindy Cobb for sharing rare images of her grandfather, Ty Cobb, which inspired the illustration that accompanies this piece.