Last year's Baltimore Orioles team broke an interesting, little known record.

This Baseball Team Recently Broke a 79-Year-Old Record. Why Didn’t Anyone Notice? The 2024 Baltimore Orioles did something historic—and not even the team knew.

...the Baltimore Orioles who, in 2024, hit into 71 double plays.

The 2024 Orioles’ 71 is the lowest full-season total in the history of Major League Baseball. No team hit into that few double plays when they only played 154 games. No team hit into that few double plays when they all wore wool pants. In fact, no team had ever hit into fewer than 75 double plays, a record set by the 1945 St. Louis Cardinals and equaled by the 2021 Tampa Bay Rays. The 2024 Orioles were, by a handsome margin, the best baseball team at not hitting into a double play that there has ever been.

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To be fair to every other baseball team in history, double plays around the league are in modest decline. There were just 0.66 per team, per game in 2024, the lowest total in decades. Maybe this has something to do with the banning of the shift, or the rule allowing video review of the “neighborhood play” (otherwise known as the “We’ll just say the second baseman touched the bag because he had the vibes of having touched the bag” play).

 

But does it matter? We don’t discount the slugging accomplishments of Pete Alonso or Aaron Judge because they play in the homer-happy 21^st century. Every team had the opportunity to hit into the fewest double plays ever. Only the Orioles did it.