Orioles Single Season Leaders: Doubles

In case you're wondering... this has absolutely no relevance to anything important. It just caught my attention, and it's a slow week for the Orioles and MLB.

I think it's interesting that 2B Brian Roberts, pretty much your prototypical lead-off hitter, has produced the 3 highest single-season doubles totals in Baltimore Orioles history... Beau Bell in 1937 had 51, which is second on the franchise list, but he posted that total while playing for the St Louis Browns, before the team moved to Baltimore. Roberts' 56 doubles in 2009 are far-and-away the club record, and he's posted a 50 double season three different times so far in his career.

Orioles Top 10 Doubles, Single-Season

1. Brian Roberts, 56 (2009)
2. Beau Bell, 51 (1937)
3. Brian Roberts, 51 (2008)
4. Brian Roberts, 50 (2004)
5. Miguel Tejada, 50 (2005)
6. George Sisler, 49 (1920)
7. Aubrey Huff, 48 (2008)
8. Nick Markakis, 48 (2008)
9. Heinie Manush, 47 (1928)
10. Cal Ripken, 47 (1983)
11. Joe Vosmik, 47 (1937)

Robert and Nick Markakis appear in the Orioles' Top 15 seven different times, combined. You can see the team's Top 50 list here, on Baseball Reference.

A few other interesting facts about this list:

• Check out the 2008 season; Roberts (51), Aubrey Huff (48), and Markakis (48) all made the team's all-time top 10, and all 8 starting position players had 20+ doubles.
• Roberts has had two different seasons in which he's had 40+ doubles and steals in the same year, which is pretty impressive.. but there are lots of guys who have done that. Fewer (10) have had 45+ in the same season. There are only two who have ever had 50 doubles and steals in the same year - Tris Speaker (1912), and Craig Biggio (1998). Hanley Ramirez has come close twice, in 2006 and 2007.
• The 1937 St Louis Browns had two players make this list - Beau Bell and Joe Vosmik. Bell was an outfielder who had a really nice start to his career (.328/.383/.482 the 1st 3 years), but fell of a cliff after '37. Vosmik was a career .307 hitter, but '37 was his only season with the franchise.
• The 47 doubles record in 1983 by Cal Ripken were, obviously, part of the team's World Series Championship season. It was an MVP year for Ripken (his first of two, the other being 1991), and one of 3 times in his career he posted a WAR greater than 8.
• Miguel Tejada hit 50 doubles in 2005, part of a 4-season stretch of ridiculous production in his first stint as an Oriole; he hit .311 and averaged 36 doubles, 27 HR, and 107 RBI from 2004-2007.