Will Miguel Cabrera wear the Triple Crown?

Miguel Cabrera is closing in on baseball's first Triple Crown in 45 years. (AP) Miguel Cabrera heads into the season's final day with the lead in all three

Miguel Cabrera is closing in on baseball's first Triple Crown in 45 years. (AP)

Miguel Cabrera heads into the season's final day with the lead in all three Triple Crown categories, and an excellent chance of becoming the first player to complete the sweep since 1967, when the Red Sox' Carl Yastrzemski did so. The feat has been accomplished 15 times in baseball history, two of them in the 19th century and two more before 1920, when RBIs became an official statistic. Since then, just nine men have won the Triple Crown a total of 11 times (Rogers Hornsby and Ted Williams repeated the feat). While it's not the supreme measure of offensive prowess that it was once thought to be — on-base percentage and slugging percentage both correlate better with scoring than batting average does, and RBIs are team-dependent — its connection to baseball history is tough to beat considering the names involved. Here are the 20th century winners, all Hall of Famers:

Year	Lg	Player	Team	Avg	HR	RBI
1901	AL	Nap Lajoie	A's	.426	14	125
1909	AL	Ty Cobb	Tigers	.377	9	107
1922	NL	Rogers Hornsby	Cardinals	.401	42	152
1925	NL	Rogers Hornsby	Cardinals	.403	39	143
1933	AL	Jimmie Foxx	A's	.356	48	163
1933	NL	Chuck Klein	Phillies	.368	28	120
1934	AL	Lou Gehrig	Yankees	.363	49	165
1937	NL	Joe Medwick	Cardinals	.374	31	154
1942	AL	Ted Williams	Red Sox	.356	36	137
1947	AL	Ted Williams	Red Sox	.343	32	114
1956	AL	Mickey Mantle	Yankees	.353	52	130
1966	AL	Frank Robinson	Orioles	.316	49	122
1967	AL	Carl Yastrzemski	Red Sox	.326	44	121

With an 11-RBI lead over Josh Hamilton (139-128), Cabrera won't be surpassed in that category, but he is vulnerable on the home run front, leading 44-43 against a player who has three multi-homer games this season (including a record-tying four-homer game on May 8) and seven in his career. The Rangers' slugger has been held in check by the A's this year, hitting three homers to go with a .250/.307/.441 line in 18 games; those homers came against Tommy Milone, Jordan Norberto and Dan Straily; he is 1-for-3 without a homer against the afternoon's starter, A.J. Griffin. Cabrera has delivered a flurry of singles against the Royals this year en route to a .324/.347/.412 line in 17 games; his lone one homer against them came against Bruce Chen on Monday night. He did homer off Monday night's starter, Luis Mendoza, back in 2010.

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