Nap Lajoie, The First American League Triple Crown Winner

It’s safe to say that the life of legendary ballplayer Napoleon Lajoie was a physical and emotional roller coaster. Involved in seemingly all of the controversies throughout baseball during his career, Lajoie still managed to maintain an extremely high level of performance on the field.

Lajoie, the son of French Canadian immigrants, was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He dropped out of school at the age of 10 and spent any spare time he had on the diamond. Lajoie began his career with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1896, batting .326 and driving in 42 runs in 39 games that season. He hit at least .324 for the next four years and led the league with 127 RBIs in 1898. It was a sign of things to come for the man widely regarded as one of the greatest hitters of the 20^th century.

His time in Philadelphia was short-lived because the American League began to challenge the dominance of the National League at the turn of the century. Lajoie, who was already making a league maximum of $2,400 was offered $4,000 by Connie Mack and the Philadelphia Athletics to make the jump to the American League. Much to the delight of the Athletics, he accepted the offer and went on to win the first ever American League Triple Crown that same year.

Nap Lajoie won the crown in 1901 with 14 homers, 125 RBIs, and a record .426 batting average. Hugh Duffy holds the all-time record after batting .440 in 1894, his Triple Crown season. Tip O’Neill hit .435 during his Triple Crown year, but he played when the league was known as the American Association. Ross Barnes who played in Boston, Chicago, and Cincinnati during his career hit .429, .430, and .431 in separate seasons. He played in the National Association and later the National League from 1871-1881 when the seasons were much shorter.

Lajoie also led the league in virtually every offensive category including doubles, runs, and hits. His single season batting average of .426 is a mark that still stands more than 100 years later as the modern major league record.

The year after winning the Triple Crown, the distractions began for Lajoie. His former club, the Philadelphia Phillies, filed an injunction after losing five other players in addition to Nap to the newly popular American League. The injunction forbade Lajoie from playing for anyone other than the Phillies, but was only enforceable in Pennsylvania. Because of that, the Athletics immediately traded him to the Cleveland Bluebirds. He brought life to the city of Cleveland and was named team captain after just a few weeks on the team. For the 1902 and 1903 seasons, Lajoie could not travel with the team on road trips to Philadelphia. The two leagues finally restored peace in 1904, allowing Lajoie to travel anywhere with the team.

Nap Lajoie would go on to play 13 seasons with Cleveland, leading the league in batting average three times during that span. In 1903, Cleveland became the only major league franchise to name their team after an active player, by adopting the name “Naps.” Lajoie was limited to just 65 games in 1905 after developing blood poisoning. Despite the scare, he survived and continued his excellent career.

After dominating baseball for so long, Ty Cobb came into the league in 1905 and proved to be tough competition for Lajoie. There was an intense rivalry between the two during the years that their careers overlapped. In 1910, the Chalmers Auto Company offered a new car to the batting leader at the end of the season. Cobb, who was already far less popular among the fans than Lajoie, decided to sit out the final two games of the season, confident his average was high enough to win. However, the St. Louis Browns allowed Nap to go eight for eight in the final two games of the year. Five of these hits were bunt singles because the Brown’s third baseman was told to play in shallow left field by the manager Jack O’Connor. This raised Lajoie’s batting average to .384, just one point higher than Cobb’s. Because of the ongoing controversy surrounding the issue, both players were awarded with cars.

Lajoie returned to the Athletics for the final two years of his career in 1915 and 1916. Over the course of his career, he played every position other than pitcher, mainly second and first base. Nap finished his baseball career with 3,242 hits, 82 home runs, 1,599 RBI’s, and a batting average of .338 in 21 seasons. He was part of the second group of players ever to be elected into the Hall of Fame in 1937, and he will always be remembered as one of the greatest hitters and fielders in MLB history. Lajoie was also the second player in history to be intentionally walked with the bases loaded, which happened to be during his 1901 Triple Crown run. Nap Lajoie was a nominee for the MLB All-Century team as well.

Lajoie died in 1959 at the age of 84 from a battle with pneumonia. He was truly an iconic figure in sports, separating off-field distractions from on-field performance.