This might be the most absurd statistic in the history of baseball.
In their history, the Chicago Cubs have had three players hit three home runs in a game against the rival St. Louis Cardinals.
All three of those games have been played on the 4th of July.
The odds of that are infinitesimal.
But ESPN’s Jesse Rogers confirmed it: Hank Leiber on July 4, 1939; Moises Alou on July 4, 2003; and Michael Busch on July 4, 2025.
Busch joined the festivities with his big day on Friday, part of the Cubs’ franchise-record 8-HR game.
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Let’s just dwell on that stat for a bit, though.
MLB teams used to play 154 games in a season. Now it’s 162.
They’ll never have July 4 off, but even with that considered, there are still more than 150 days in each calendar year that the Cubs play a baseball game.
Maybe the odds of them being scheduled against the Cardinals is higher on July 4, given the rivalry, but they play the Cardinals all over the calendar, too.
Three-homer games are uncommon, to be sure, so that adds to the whole mix.
And yet, the only three times a Cubs player has ever achieved that rare feat against St. Louis has been on Independence Day.
There isn’t even a word to describe that.
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