Triple Crown Trio (a great baseball card newly created based on the 1968 Topps set)

In 1968, there were three active Triple Crown winners. That is the last year there were that many. I suggested this idea to Jason K. Woodburn, who has a Twitter account called "Custom Cards OTD in Baseball" (@custom_baseball). He created this card. 

Topps often had cards like this that featured two or three big stars photographed together. Unfortunately, Topps did not have such a card in 1968, although they could have because Yastrzemski won the Triple Crown in 1967, Frank Robinson did it in 1966 and Mantle in 1956. All three were active in 1968 (then Mantle retired the next year, not playing in 1969). Maybe there was never a time when all three were at the same place. 

 

Annual Games Behind For The St. Louis Browns, 1901-43

They finally won a pennant in 1944. Prior to that, they had only one season when they finished less than 5 GB (1922, 1 GB). There were only two others when they were under 10 GB (1902 5 GB & 1908 6.5 GB).

So that 1922 season in very anomalous. In 1921, they finished 17.5 GB and in 1923 they were 24 GB. In both seasons they fell out of contention very early on. In 1921, the were behind by at least 10 games from June 16 to the end of the season. In 1923, it was from June 29 on.

The bar chart below illustrates their GB for each season. 1922 is a cabin in a sea of skyscrapers.