The triple crown

From Morning Briefing in the Los Angeles Times:

Which is harder to win, the Triple Crown of baseball or the Triple Crown of horse racing?

In the past 117 years, there have been 17 Triple Crown winners in baseball. In the past 122 years, there have been 11 Triple Crown winners in horse racing.

The last Triple Crown winners in baseball were Frank Robinson in 1966 and Carl Yastrzemski in 1967. The last Triple Crown winner in horse racing was Affirmed in 1978.

Tom Durkin, who will call today’s Belmont Stakes for NBC, said on a conference call this week, “There’s no question that the Triple Crown of horse racing is more difficult. How many years did Willie Mays play? Twenty years? [Actually 22]. He had 20 chances to do it. Smarty Jones has one. That’s it.”

Dissenting vote: Paul Hagen of the Philadelphia Daily News claims the Triple Crown debate is a walkover for baseball.

“Think about it,” he wrote. “To claim a spot in his sport’s pantheon, Smarty Jones has to be better than a dozen or so horses for just more than six minutes.

“To win baseball’s Triple Crown, a hitter must be at the top of his game for six grinding months … competing against hundreds of the best.”