The Chicago Cubs are still playing baseball, and so there won’t be that much time to reflect on what Pete Crow-Armstrong achieved this season before it becomes time to worry about winning playoff games.
It is worth considering just how special this year was for PCA.
He went 40-40, only the seventh player to ever do that in MLB history with home runs and steals.
But the exact totals he ended up with, relative to the rest of the league, were an extra layer of history. Crow-Armstrong actually achieved something that hasn’t been done since the Detroit Tigers legend Ty Cobb in 1909.
Yes, 1909.
PCA Baseball History With Ty Cobb
Crow-Armstrong didn’t just go 40-40.
He finished the year with 45 home runs and 41 stolen bases.
The 45 homers were particularly notable, because they tied for the major league lead.
Crow-Armstrong went deep 45 times, and so did Phillies star Kyle Schwarber. No one hit more.
That makes Crow-Armstrong the second player to lead the league in home runs (with ties included) and have at least 40 steals in a season, according to MLB Network’s Sarah Langs.
The first to do it? Ty Cobb.
He achieved the feat in 1909 with a slightly different stat line.
That year, Cobb hit 9 home runs. He also stole 78 bases.
That was still the Dead Ball Era, so Cobb’s nine homers were the best in the sport.
Cobb was one of the original legends of the game of baseball.
He’s the all-time leader in batting average, and he hit 724 doubles, 295 triples and 117 homers out of his 4,189 hits.
In that 1909 season, Cobb hit .377 and had 216 hits while also leading the American League in runs, hits and RBI.
That’s quite the company for PCA to keep.
A Fun Ty Cobb Story
Cobb’s power was the stuff of legend back in the day.
The story goes that he actually had more pop than he usually access in games, but he was such a pure hitter that that’s the approach he took for the vast majority of his career.
But it was said that once Babe Ruth came along, Cobb didn’t appreciate that the big slugger was receiving all the attention that he was.
And so one day, Cobb decided he was going to show he could hit for power, too — and he hit three home runs that day.
Point proven, Cobb went back to being one of the best pure hitters the game has ever seen.
But don’t let people say Cobb couldn’t hit for power — because for his era, he certainly could.
It’s more than a century since Cobb’s prime, yet baseball history connects him to Crow-Armstrong, which is one of the coolest aspects of this sport and all the statistics that come with it.
Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong Matches 1909 Ty Cobb in Baseball History