Natural cycle

During a baseball game, a natural cycle occurs when all four of the qualifying hits in the cycle come exactly in the following sequential order: single, double, triple, home run. There may be more than four hits total, which happened with Tony Lazzeri when he collected an extra single during his hitting for the natural cycle, but the relevant four hits must be in order as described.

The natural cycle, as opposed to hitting for the cycle in general, arguably is less a contrivance than a way of acknowledging the integrity and quality of the cycle that's hit. Notably, there have been instances when a hitter, in their final at bat, did not take extra bases after getting what should have been an extra-base hit, needing specifically a single in order to obtain the last element of the cycle. This artificially creates a cycle for the sole purpose of attaining that milestone as it is indeed a rare achievement; there are only three players in Major League Baseball history sharing the record of three cycles in a career. With a natural cycle, such a contrivance is avoided by its structure of increasing total bases with each at bat.

It's widely acknowledged in baseball that a cycle is the hitter's version of the no-hitter for a pitcher, in terms of difficulty and amount of skills needed. Accordingly, the two have been achieved a comparable number of times. Similarly, the natural cycle by a hitter parallels the perfect game by a pitcher, at least in terms of frequency; the two have only been achieved in MLB history fourteen and seventeen times, respectively. [ [http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats16d.shtml Baseball Almanac] ] [ [http://www.baseball-almanac.com/pitching/piperf.shtml Baseball Almanac] ]

Complete list of natural cycles hit in MLB

Notes

*Lazzeri is the only player ever to finish a natural cycle with a grand slam. However, this achievement was overshadowed by his Yankees teammate Lou Gehrig's four home runs in the same game. [ [http://www.baseball-almanac.com/feats/feats16d.shtml baseball-references.com] ]

*The National League and the American League have hit for a natural cycle seven times each to date.

*There are 14 natural cycles and 14 unassisted triple plays in major league history.

References

External links

* [http://www.thebaseballpage.com/ The Baseball Page]
* [http://www.baseballlibrary.com/ Baseball Library]
* [http://www.mlb.com/ Major League Baseball]