Baseball is a sport that has been around for centuries, and it has seen its fair share of incredible plays. But what are the rarest plays in the game? The answer may surprise you. The rarest of all is the triple play without assistance from an outfielder, made only once in the history of professional baseball, by Walter Carlisle. It's possible for a team to score in a triple play, but that's also phenomenally rare.
The rarest type of triple play, and one of the rarest events of any kind in baseball, is for a single outfielder to complete all three outs. Of the 15 unassisted three-pointer plays in Major League Baseball (MLB) history, 12 were completed in this way by a center court player. However, it turns out that the antithesis of an unassisted triple play (three errors made by a player in play) is even rarer, since it has only happened once, as far as we know. As mentioned in other answers, this would be a situation in which a team turns around what is already a triple play, but must register a “fourth out” to cancel a streak that would otherwise count.
In the baseball annotation log, the abbreviation GITP can be used if the batter makes a triple play. There have only been 15 unassisted three-pointers in MLB history, making this feat rarer than a perfect game. The most likely scenario for a triple play is that there are no outs with runners at first and second base, as has been the case in most MLB triple plays. Two of the Brewers' three runs occurred in the three-error play, although one of them became a clean run due to a subsequent single allowed by John.
In baseball, a triple play (referred to as TP in baseball statistics) is the act of making three outs during the same play. There have been only 733 three-pointers in MLB since 1876, an average of just over five per season. According to the scenario described above, the same outfielder (the shortstop, for example) could be attributed all three putouts, thus achieving a triple play without assistance without having touched the ball. Political columnist and baseball enthusiast George Will proposed a hypothetical way in which a triple play could take place without any outfielder touching the ball. The rarest of the rare plays, which I'm sure will never really happen but which would be incredible to witness, would be one that can only happen under the rules of the National League.
Usually, an unassisted triple play is achieved when a center court player catches a line drive near second base (first out), steps on the base before the runner who started there can score (second out), and then tags the runner who advances from first base before he can return there (third out). Triple plays are incredibly rare events that occur only once every few years. They are even more remarkable when they are completed without any assistance from an outfielder. While these plays may never happen again, they will always remain part of baseball lore.
