History of The Bunt Double

This past Friday Jeff Sullivan of Fangraphs wrote a wonderfully entertaining piece that focused on the two occasions in which major leaguers bunted for power in 2012. In his piece, Sullivan shows the gif images of both Quentin Berry and Juan Pierre's awkward-looking bunted doubles, and mentions that this is Pierre's third time pulling off the bizarre feat. As it turns out, Pierre's latest bunt double ties him for the record dating back since play-by-play data is available.

St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Rafael Furcal is the only other player in history known to have grabbed the extra base off of a bunt more than twice. Furcal did it in consecutive seasons in 2002 and 2001 and then again just recently in 2009.

Prior to that, only Alfredo Griffin was known to have done it twice, once in 1985 and again two years later in '87. Oddly, Griffin's first bunt double occurred in a season in which three other players also recorded power bunts-- Mariano Duncan, Odibe Mcdowell, and no bunting discussion would be complete without Brett Butler, the all-time leader at bunting for a hit. 1985 was the only season in which there were four instances of bunting for a double, but there were three power bunts in 1975 and in 1997.

Fittingly, Jackie Robinson was the first to record the bunt double in 1951.

No player has ever recorded a bunt triple.

Here is the full list (google doc) of all known bunt doubles:

Bunting for a Double

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James Gentile writes about baseball at Beyond the Box Score and The Hardball Times. You can follow him on twitter @JDGentile.