Talk:Hitting for the cycle

Natural cycle?
"Listed below are the 268 occurrences of players "hitting for the cycle" in Major League Baseball (players with multiple occurrences denoted in parentheses, natural cycles in bold):"

What IS a natural cycle? Tromboneguy0186 12:58, 4 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Defined in the opening paragraph. MisfitToys 22:23, 6 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks, I have no idea how I missed that. Tromboneguy0186 01:43, 8 June 2006 (UTC)

Quick Update!
Wow, whoever updated the Jose Reyes addition to the cycle list was definately watching the game while on the computer. It was updated immediately!

Players with 2 or more
There are lots of players missing from this list that were in the above list.


 * Yes, it seems that someone stopped working on the section at the mid-1930s. MisfitToys 20:11, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

Is this section even needed? The article's quite long as it is, and it's easy enough to do a find on "(2)" or "(3)" in the top list since the multiples are spiked out. -- dakern74 (talk) 06:01, 19 September 2006 (UTC)

Giants cycles
The list in this very article has 21 by the NY/SF Giants. Where does 22 or 24 come from? Js farrar 03:21, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

Football cycle?
TD, PAT, FG, and safety in the same game—ever been done? The Philadelphia Eagles, as a team, did it on Oct. 18, 1992, in a 16-12 loss to the Redskins.--BillFlis 17:34, 13 September 2007 (UTC)
 * I can't imagine any players have done it (few kickers will have scored a safety, though perhaps someone did it in the two-way era), but I suspect that most teams that have scored safeties have also picked up the other three in the same game. MisfitToys 23:31, 14 September 2007 (UTC)
 * But what about a TD, FG, safety, PAT, and a 2 point conversion? That would be more noteworthy, methinks. 71.132.138.14 09:23, 7 November 2007 (UTC)
 * Or TD, PAT, FG, 2-point safety, 1-point safety... -- Jwinters | Talk 00:41, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Carlos Gomez's Cycle on 5/7/2008
He hit for the cycle in reverse -- a leadoff homer, followed by a triple, then a double, and finishing with a single in the 9th. A reverse natural cycle? shaggy (talk) 04:02, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Luke Scott, Jim Fregosi and Gee Walker have done this also. Saw a tidbit in an ESPN article, dug around and found this box score/play-by-play to confirm the Fregosi reverse natural cycle. The other two are well-known as "the only two players to ever hit for the reverse natural cycle". shaggy (talk) 18:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)

Colorado Rockies
Not sure if it deserves mention in this article but on Friday June 6, 2008 4 players from the Colorado Rockies hit for the natural cycle in order in the bottom of the 8th inning. It went Ryan Spillborghs single, Todd Helton double, Garret Atkins triple, Brad Hawpe homerun. Just thought that was interesting anad may deserve mention on this page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.32.187.57 (talk) 03:41, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't think that deserves much mention. on June 7, 2008 4 players from the Cardinals hit for the cycle in one inning as well. Tavix (talk) 23:43, 7 June 2008 (UTC)


 * This is what happens when you combine Wikinerds and baseball nerds. Tavix, you deserve a neck slap for not noticing that the two incidents happened on successive days.  And for not saying "natural cycle" if that's what you meant.  If you didn't mean "natural" then what you brought up is irrelevant.  Huzzah!!!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.163.65.9 (talk) 05:22, 27 July 2008 (UTC)

Try Game 5 of the 2001 American League Championship Series in which the Detroit Tigers began their half of the sixth inning with (in succession) a single (Ryan Rayburn), a double (Miguel Cabrera), a triple (Victor Martínez), and a home run (Delmon Young). The announcers on FoX Television made note of its unlikelihood, and not only because Victor Martínez is ordinarily one of the slowest baserunners in the game, and he was playing hurt, and so was one of the least likely baseball players to hit a triple.

Mike Mitchell
According to Retrosheet.org (see reference), Mike Mitchell (Reds/1911) is no longer credited with a cycle. Was wondering if there is another source to confirm this? I made no changes to the page reflecting the new information yet. -- EnjoysButter (talk) 18:56, 4 February 2009 (UTC)

Reverse Natural Cycle/Home Run cycle
I believe I read somewhere in Wikipedia that there have also been 2 reverse natural cycles. I think they ought to be listed.

Also, no one in major league baseball has ever hit the home run cycle (solo, 2 runs, 3, grand slam). I think A-Rod once came close, getting 3 out of 4, and one really long out. Someone in double A, believe, did so.

67.83.208.250 (talk) 11:47, 17 April 2009 (UTC)


 * there have been 4 reverse natural cycles, as far as I can tell. Gee Walker, Jim Fregosi, Luke Scott, and Carlos Gomez. Most of these are listed in the "statistics" section. shaggy (talk) 14:20, 18 April 2009 (UTC)

Hitting more than the cycle
Is it worth mentioning in the article that hitting more than the cycle does not count as a cycle? For example, hitting a HR, triple, and two doubles. Is this debatable? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.10.123.95 (talk) 01:50, 30 June 2009 (UTC)


 * By that looser definition, all of the four-homer games and many of the three-homer games would also be cycles. WHPratt (talk) 23:35, 24 July 2011 (UTC)


 * Hitting for the cycle is an amusing statistical fluke. It is self-evident that hitting four extra-base hits in a game would be better than hitting for a cycle, but assigning special significance to the cycle is part of baseball tradition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.21.187.37 (talk) 03:53, 17 October 2011 (UTC)

Merge proposal
The content of Natural cycle is covered in Hitting for the cycle. It seems like duplication to have that other page. I believe it should be a redirect to this page. --Muboshgu (talk) 22:11, 21 October 2010 (UTC)
 * Support makes perfect sense to merge. The list of players at Hitting for the cycle already notes those of which were natural cycles.  Grsz 11  15:53, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

With no other comments besides one support, I'm gonna be bold and do the merge and redirect now. – Muboshgu (talk) 16:45, 24 April 2011 (UTC)
 * Agreed. — X96lee15 (talk) 16:49, 24 April 2011 (UTC)

Since this merge has already happened, I think there should be a separate table listing all the natural cycles done in history, to distinguish certain players from the regular hitting cycle chart. I don't think even the current chart specifically designates which of the cycles hit are natural. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sharanth (talk • contribs) 02:14, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

1887
Did all of the 1887 cycles consist of four "real" hits, or did some on them use a base-on-balls for the single? (In 1887, walks were considered hits for the purpose of the batting average.) WHPratt (talk) 21:18, 10 May 2011 (UTC) ...or... Is it possible that one of these guys got four legitimate hits and also drew a walk, thus completing a five-item cycle, i.e., homer, triple, double, hit-single and walk-single? WHPratt (talk) 16:39, 7 October 2011 (UTC)

Follow-up:

Herman Krabbenhoft addressed these issues with some research described in the Yahoo Group for the SABR Baseball Records Committee in May and June of 2017. He studied game accounts and box scores that were available. Of course, if the write up said that somebody “singled to left,” that indicates a hit by the modern definition. If the opposing pitcher(s) didn’t walk anybody, then all the “hits” were hits. However, not everything was that easy.

Refer to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Major_League_Baseball_players_to_hit_for_the_cycle

We’re talking about five alleged cycles in 1887. Tip O'Neill (1) 	  April 30, 1887 Fred Carroll 	  May 2, 1887 Tip O'Neill (2) 	  May 7, 1887 Dave Orr 	   August 10, 1887 Bid McPhee 	  August 26, 1887

Krebbenhoft disputes the first Tip O’Neill cycle outright. O'Neill's name appeared on some earlier lists of cyclers, but the committee that published the first MacMillan Baseball Encyclopedia has him with two home runs and no triples in the game in question, ergo no cycle at all. He apparently had two “singles,” one of these earned via a walk. Thus, if he’d tripled instead of hitting a second homer, he would have had a five-item cycle. As other sources differ as to the configuration of his extra-base hits, research from additional sources is obviously needed.

However, on May 7, O’Neill had no walks, and so this was a legitimate four-hit cycle.

Three Detroit newspapers agree on Fred Carroll’s statistical line, and play-by-play in one of them spells out four distinct hits by the current definition.

A newspaper account mentions that Dave Orr “made a single, a double, a triple and a home run.” As players who drew walks are listed and Orr isn’t amongst them, this cycle is legit by the current definition.

Krabbenhoft says the Baltimore American credits Bid McPhee with a 2B, 3B and HR and five hits total. The walks credited to the opposing pitcher and the at-bats credited to the lineup suggest that McPhee probably had both a hit-single and a walk-single, but more evidence would be welcome.

So, it would seem there’s no clear evidence that any player took advantage of the 1887 a-walk-is-a-hit rule to complete a cycle, although Tip O’Neill’s first cycle credit may be due to a clerical error. There’s a possibility that Bid McPhee achieved a 5-hit cycle with two varieties of a “single.”

References: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SABR_Records/conversations/messages/1171 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SABR_Records/conversations/messages/1173 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SABR_Records/conversations/messages/1174 WHPratt (talk) 23:57, 28 April 2018 (UTC)

Further: Krebbenhoft was hoping for a Cincinnati news source to confirm his Baltimore source regarding McPhee's cycle. I note that we have it on this very page, just a bit below! Check out Bid McPhee hit a reverse natural cycle -- and a five-item cycle as well! WHPratt (talk) 00:06, 29 April 2018 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:12, 30 July 2011 (UTC)

Hitting for the cycle → Cycle (baseball) – - The current title isn't consistent with other pages on baseball terminology on Wikipedia. There aren't articles called "Hitting a home run", "Stealing a base", etc., so it's confusing that this page is styled like that. Transaspie (talk) 00:23, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * We do have an article called stolen base, though, so I don't quite see why this is "confusing". "Hitting" is a gerund in this case and thus a perfectly good noun.  Powers T 02:01, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Actually, I think "hitting" is a verb here. You can say a player "hit for the cycle" in the past tense, for example.  But the reason I think this page should move to "cycle (baseball)" is because it's unusual to see a baseball feat titled this way.  To use another example that may or may not work, we'll take the article on no-hitters.  This is as common as a cycle but the article is not titled "pitching a no-hitter", "throwing a no-hitter", or whatever.  I just believe that the article titles need to be consistent in regards to baseball terminology.  Hope this makes sense.  Let me know if it doesn't. -- Transaspie (talk) 02:15, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * No, I agree it's a little inconsistent, but some sort of disambiguation is necessary. Given that, I prefer this version to using parenthetical disambiguation; I think it's more natural.  Powers T 15:19, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The thing with cycles is that you can say a player hit for "a cycle" or "the cycle" (though the latter is obviously way more common), and you can abandon the article all together when you talk about something like the three cycles that John Olerud has in his career. I know we're getting back to words again, but the current title might make a layperson assume that it's only called "the cycle".  Or something like that.  Honestly, this is the best I can do to argue my point right now.  Because I don't want to sound like a broken record, maybe it's better if I just drop this issue and accept (with some reluctance, of course) the current title.  I don't know. -- Transaspie (talk) 19:58, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * It's not just a cycle, but a "cycle of hits." A batter with a single, double, triple and homer has cycled through all the possible types of hits (at least by one interpretation as to types of hits). WHPratt (talk) 13:17, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Interesting request. I'm undecided at the moment. I feel that the authors at WT:BASEBALL should be informed of this request so there can be a discussion this coming week. – Muboshgu (talk) 20:34, 24 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for your input...I've let the Baseball WikiTopic people know about this issue...I look forward to their feedback. -- Transaspie (talk) 00:08, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think I prefer the current terminology. Cycle on its own just looks weird and isnt really ever used on its own without "hit for the..." preceding it. While in your other examples, no-hitters are used without the "pitched a..." more frequently. Spanneraol (talk) 01:00, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I'll agree that cycle by itself looks weird. Even MLB.com, in its list of feats, uses "hit for the cycle", rather than just "cycle".  It's just a consistency issue.  No other article title on baseball terminology is phrased like that.  I'm not saying that "cycle (baseball)" is better than "hitting for the cycle" or even "list of Major League Baseball player to hit for the cycle" if one wants to make a featured list out of this article (I can see it going either way).  It's just more in line with all the other baseball terminology articles. -- Transaspie (talk) 03:09, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I've sometimes seen "cycle" in lists of baseball definitions, as "single, double, triple, homer". However, I've never seen it actually used by itself in a sentence, but only as "hit for the cycle" - and not "a" cycle ever, but always "the" cycle. Someone should find a copy of Dickson's baseball dictionary and see what it has to say. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 06:27, 25 July 2011 (UTC)
 * Dickson's baseball dictionary has both, actually. A definition for "cycle" is here, and a definition for "hit for the cycle" is here.  Oddly, hitting for the cycle also apparently means hitting home runs in every city in the league according to Dickson.  But, anyway, they're both there. -- Transaspie (talk) 22:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I would oppose this, as the others have said I have never seen it on its own as cycle. Its always hitting for the cycle. But the second reason is that non bracketed disambiguators are always preferred over bracketed ones. -DJSasso (talk) 14:59, 25 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I oppose a move. I think the terminology in common use is a better angle than any perceived naming convention about baseball articles. 71.192.211.120 (talk) 19:19, 28 July 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Mathematical analysis?
It might be interesting to have a mathematical analysis. What are the probabilities of getting a single, a double, a triple, a home run in one at bat? How do these combine to create the probability of hitting for the cycle? 206.8.2.11 (talk) 14:00, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * It would also be interesting to see a home/road breakdown of the historical cycles. I'd be willing to bet that significantly more are hit by visiting players.  This seems contrary to logic (players hit better at home, right?).  However, to accomplish a cycle, you need a minimum of four plate appearances, and getting five or six improve your chances greatly.  The fact that the home team often doesn't get to bat in the ninth inning gives their players fewer chances for a fourth hit.  (Because they have at least one player having a good day with the bat, the cycle candidate's team should be winning more often than not by the time the ninth rolls around.) Check the list of players with four home runs in a game: most are visiting players, and the same logic would seem to prevail. WHPratt (talk) 18:35, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * A mathematical analysis would be original research. I didn't include home/away splits in this article when talking about it but if there are sources discussing it, it's a possibility for addition. &mdash; KV5  •  Talk  •  21:09, 7 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Okay, let's see. The Retrosheet list referenced here had 297 cycles from 1882 through 2011 in a list with teams and sites. Not wanting to tally this up on paper, I extracted their data and ran it through a simple program, checking the site against the team and the opponent for a match.  The results: 140 on the road, 156 at home.  One neutral site: Buck Freeman, 06/21/1903, for BOS AL vs CLE at Mahaffey Park in Canton, Ohio -- though that was probably a Cleveland home date and hence one more for the "road" total.  Testing 140-156 versus an expected 148-148 gives a Yates'-corrected Chi-Square of 0.76, which suggests that a difference this great could happen by chance something like 39% of the time, and is thus nowhere near significance.  You'd need something like 165-131 in either direction for significance at the 5% level.  My guess was wrong: home team players appear to be in no way disadvantaged. WHPratt (talk) 01:58, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well. Good to know. &mdash; KV5  •  Talk  •  02:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Well. Good to know. &mdash; KV5  •  Talk  •  02:22, 8 October 2011 (UTC)


 * This source states that the odds of hitting for the cycle in a given game are one in 739.2.  However, that sounds very, very wrong to me; there are way too many players that have gone 739.2 or more games and never hit for the cycle.   If you went with a simplistic set of assumptions, each of nine players would have 162 chances to do it every year, and therefore have a 21.9% chance each to do it - therefore the average team should hit 2 cycles (roughly) per year, and there should therefore be about 60 cycles hit this year.  Obviously that's wrong; there are an average of 2 per year given the retrosheet information - granted, the odds are higher now than in 1882 due to more games being played per year, but the majors have been in their current 162 game/year, 26-30 teams configuration since the late 1960s.  There were 80 cycles between 1989 and 2011, which suggests a number close to 3.6 per year should be the expected number of cycles - put another way, the odds of a cycle occurring in any given game should be on the order of 0.15% (3.6 divided by (162 x 15, the number of games currently played in an MLB season, postseason excluded)).  And the odds of any individual player doing it are one in 12,028.5 (previous answer/18 starting players - realistically a reserve hitting for the cycle would be improbable, due to inability to get 4 PAs) - roughly.  That's not a straight up statistical analysis, but one in 12,028.5 is pretty chi squared far away from 739.2.   The proper odds answer should be on the order of 1 in 10000, unless the last 22 years were out and out statistical outliers; but they don't seem to be, compared with earlier eras at least going back to Ruth and the end of the dead ball era.

The problem with computing the actual odds of doing it, however, is in part a problem of the fact that each individual player has different odds to achieve the feat. What are the odds that Bengie Molina hits a triple in his career, given how slow he is on the bases? Yet he happened to do it on the same day as he hit a homer, double and single. Likewise, a guy like, say, Chone Figgins, isn't going to hit a lot of homers, compared to a guy like, say, Albert Pujols. But Figgy has a cycle, Pujols doesn't. Figgins is a perfect example of this, actually;  he has more career triples than homers, a rarity in the game, but it's due to his playing style which relies heavily on speed rather than power. --VegasHombre (talk) 07:04, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

Another fact -- the cycle is rare enough that such great hitters as

Hank Aaron Ernie Banks Barry Bonds Ty Cobb Ken Griffey, Jr. Rickey Henderson Reggie Jackson Derek Jeter Al Kaline Willie Mays Joe Morgan Tony Perez Ivan Rodriguez Pete Rose Babe Ruth Ryne Sandberg Sammy Sosa

have never hit for the cycle. Pbrower2a (talk) 00:31, 16 November 2017 (UTC)

Team cycles
Note well: the chance of four hitters hitting a single, double, triple, and home run in direct succession is essentially as difficult as one batter doing so in a game in which the batter gets four plate appearances, and more unlikely than a batter getting a cycle in five plate appearances.Pbrower2a (talk) 01:17, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Actually not, and the scope of this article excludes "team cycles" which are not recognized as cycles by reputable statistical sources. &mdash; KV5  •  Talk  •  01:19, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Sure, and the odds of four players hitting home runs consecutively are also remote, but any team that does so would not have an entry added to List of Major League Baseball hitters with four home runs in one game. I agree with KV5.  That the media picked up a tangental concept and named it something akin to a cycle doesn't make it any less a case of trivia.  And in this case, trivia given undue weight. Definitely talk about the feat in the appropriate team season and LCS article, but it is out of this article's scope. Resolute 01:25, 15 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Joe Buck or Tim McCarver, I forget which, invented that concept on the air, and some folks picked up on it. It doesn't qualify. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:24, 15 October 2011 (UTC)

Refusing the cycle
If a source is available, it should be pointed out somewhere in the article that while 4 hits and 10 total bases in a game is a notable feat, hitting for the cycle is a statistical nicety that can potentially be at odds with team play (in this way it differs from a no-hitter, where the only negative impact might be on the pitcher himself in terms of fatigue, bearing in mind future games). An example - and I have seen this in a game, I can't remember who was playing though - would be when a player has hit a home run, a triple and a double, then hits another double. If hitting for the cycle was that important, he would have stopped at first base to pick up the single. Instead, he refused the cycle and continued to second. --Jameboy (talk) 00:44, 6 June 2012 (UTC)

Data inconsistency
This article says that there have been 294 cycles in history, while the List of Major League Baseball players to hit for the cycle says 293. As an encyclopedia, Wikipedia can't afford to be inconsistent. Can someone please rectify this. Perhaps, to avoid a similar problem in the future (since the list continues to grow), the text should say something like "As of 2012, cycles have occurred N times ...". Thanks, Truthanado (talk) 18:40, 18 August 2012 (UTC)

Bid McPhee hit a reverse natural cycle
This article listed that only four players hit for the natural cycle in reverse, when in fact I just discovered that Bid McPhee did it as well. I made the change on the main article but couldn't get the reference listed correctly. Below it is listed

An Old-Time Slugging Match. Cincinnati Commercial Gazette 08-27-1887

Here is a quot from the article that mentions it.

"McPhee's batting for the Cincinnatis was truly the feature of the game for the first time he shouldered the ash he sent the sphere rolling into left for a home run. The next time at bat he scored a triple, a double then next and then a single and a base on balls.

SCSRdotorg (talk) 21:40, 24 March 2015 (UTC)

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