MLB’s alternative cycles: Seven other baseball feats we can celebrate, from Speed Cycle to the Cycle of Icarus

Hitting for the cycle is, when you think about it, something of a baseball curio. It’s a feat celebrated in large measure because of its symmetry – one of every kind of hit locking eyes with each other from around an imagined axis. While getting four (or more) hits of any kind in a single game is a feat of substantial worth, it’s not the most valuable use of four at-bats. 

For instance, Yankees slugger Aaron Judge’s recent three-homer and one-double-that-was almost a homer game yielded 14 total bases. The traditional cycle – please do read “traditional” as a pejorative in this instance – tallies up 10 total bases. Look no further than Cubs catcher Carson Kelly and his recent cycle for evidence of this stirring claim. Reds superduperstar Elly De La Cruz on the same night of Kelly’s cycle narrowly avoided the same fate by doing the honest work of hitting a second homer instead of a first triple. That adds up to 11 total bases. 

On another level, we’re approaching 350 traditional cycles across all of major-league history. As framed needlepoints teach us, anything that happens more than 300 times is not all that special. (Looking at you, no-hitters.) All of this joins to form one disembodied mouth, which cries out for alternative definitions of the hitter’s cycle. As always, the author is here for those with nowhere left to turn.

With the opposite of pride and fully aware that no one asked for such a thing, we present these alternative definitions of the cycle. 

The Mighty Cycle

The cyclist is required by the ancient papyrus scrolls of the guild to hit a single en route to becoming just that – a cyclist. However, we all know that the single is the most wee of hits, demonstrably less valuable than the double, the triple, and the homer and indicative of a hitter who has skimped on strength-building essentials like deep knee bends and trunk twists. As such, the true cyclist takes leave of oral tradition and swaps out the single for something more forceful and honorable. Take that, single. 

So the definition of a Mighty Cycle is a double, a triple, a homer, and then in lieu of that missing single, another damn extra-base hit of the hitter’s preferred flavor. And, no, the Mighty Cyclist is not permitted to tack on a single as, say, a fifth hit for the contest in question. If you hit a single, you are – thus, therefore, and ergo – not Mighty. 

As it turns out, 55 batsmen in MLB history have achieved the Mighty Cycle. The membership rolls span from Fielder Jones on May 16, 1908 to Gunnar Henderson on Aug. 20, 2023 and is peppered between them with luminous names like Hank Aaron, Lou Gehrig, Jimmie Foxx, Willie Stargell, Ty Cobb, and Mike Blowers. 

The Hustler’s Cycle

This is a subset of the traditional cycle, and it’s only happened once. The defining wrinkle is that the home run must be of the inside-the-park variety. So it’s a single, a double, a triple, and an inside-the-park home run. In Venn diagram terms, think of it as a dot inside the giant circle of traditional cycles. That dot is named Leon Culberson, who as a rookie for the Boston Red Sox on July 3, 1943 became the first and to date only player to achieve the Hustler’s Cycle. He waited until the eighth inning to tally his inside-the-parker off Cleveland twirler Mike Naymick. Foundation-rattling prediction: Monsieur De La Cruz will one day become the second member of the Hustler Cycle club. Membership entitles you to a tailored jacket with a crest on it. 

The Cycle of Icarus 

Thought leader and philosopher-king Casey Kasem once cautioned his followers thus: 

Across history, many have willfully neglected the first part of the above sage counsel and paid dearly for their vanity. This brings us to the Cycle of Icarus, which is named for a touring musician who played his bass guitar of wax too near the on-stage pyrotechnics. The Cycle of Icarus, it says here, is achieved when a hitter compiles a single, a double, a homer, and then is thrown out trying to stretch a second double into that missing triple. 

Blessedly for high-minded SEO purposes, no less a baseball-ist than Shohei Ohtani was the last to achieve the Cycle of Icarus, and he did it last season. In the third inning of the Dodgers’ Sept. 19 contest against the Marlins, Ohtani smote a double to deep center, but unfortunately for him Kyle Streets of Fire Stowers was on the beat and cut him down at third base with an 8-6-5. Ohtani went on to amass a 6-for-6 (!) day at the plate with a single, a pair of doubles, three homers, and his 50th and 51st stolen bases of the season. 

Bryan Reynolds of the Pirates also notched the Cycle of Icarus in 2024. In all, the Cycle of Icarus has been achieved 25 times since 2000. The author has neither the will nor the inclination to go beyond that with his database query that was probably performed incorrectly anyway. 

The Speed Cycle

Inspired by the afore-adored Elly De La Cruz, who was the last to author what’s about to be explained, the Speed Cycle demands that the hitter notch an infield single and steals of second base, third base, and home. Doing all that, you see, requires speed or at least rarely glimpsed levels of ineptitude on the part of the opposition. 

The Reds’ July 8, 2023 tilt against the Brewers occasioned De La Cruz’s Speed Cycle. Obviously, the steal of home is the most elusive component of the Speed Cycle. As it turns out, De La Cruz got all three required steals in short order. Please enjoy via the magic of technicolor broadcasting and the Curtis Mathes console television set embedded just below: 

Just two others in the current millennium – Jonathan Villar in 2019 and Travis Jankowski in 2016 – have managed the Speed Cycle. As such, the Speed Cycle is known in more clinical circles as the Jankowski Protocol. 

The Vagabond’s Cycle

This is reserved for those Badlands-reared hitters who were within spitting range of a traditional cycle but, thanks to their bottomless iniquities, were ejected before completing the cycle bid. Since the phrase “a triple shy of the cycle” has abused its privileges and veered into inanity, we shall mandate that the hitter must have already notched the hard-to-come-by triple before being given the bum’s rush. So, to summarize, the Vagabond’s Cycle graces us when a hitter has a triple paired with two of the remaining three constituent hits but is ejected before he’s able to notch that fourth and final part of the traditional cycle. 

Since 2000, the only buccaneering soul to manage the Vagabond’s Cycle is Shawon Dunston of the 2000 Cardinals. Dunston in his squad’s May 30 encounter with the Diamondbacks singled in the fifth, homered in the sixth (a grand slam), and tripled in the eighth over the head of Arizona fly-catcher Steve Finley. That late-game triple reflects back at us the duality of the Vagabond’s Cycle. 

Dunston tried to stretch that triple into an inside-the-park home run. Had he been successful, then the Hustler’s Cycle would’ve been in play for Dunston (although it probably would’ve required an accommodating dose of extra innings). Had he remained at third – and thus not been visited by the grievances about to be chronicled – then he would’ve remained in the game, and the traditional cycle would’ve perhaps been within his grasp. Instead, Dunston was called out at the plate by jurisdictional authority Travis Katzenmeier. That led to righteous protest on the part of Dunston, which in turn led to Dunston’s non-righteous expulsion. He repaired to the clubhouse a double from the traditional cycle but had thus accomplished the far more compelling Vagabond’s Cycle. (No, Dunston’s spot in the batting order, filled post-ejection by J.D. Drew, did not come up again, but trifling details that work against the larger point are not welcome here.)

Replays of Dunston’s dash home appeared to show that he was safe at the plate, but there was no such thing as official replay review in those benighted times. “I was just doing my job. I didn’t say anything obscene. I just told him I thought I was safe,” Dunston said after the game. “I saw it on the monitor and I still think I was safe.”

Mr. Dunston, you were safe – safely in possession of the Vagabond’s Cycle. 

Let us now conclude with a pair of concocted cycles that have yet to be achieved throughout the sprawl of baseball history. Think of them as something to monitor – or, more to the point, not monitor at all – with the absence of bated breath in the years to come before the umpire of this mortal coil ejects us all before we can hit a double. 

The Chaotic Good Cycle

Managers, often while paring their nails, like to hold forth that mistakes made in the name of aggressiveness are not mistakes at all. The Chaotic Good Cyclist stresses such measured wisdom to the point of shattering. The Chaotic Good Cycle happens when a player suffers a putout at first base – easy enough – but is also thrown out at second, third, and home in the same game, whether by being caught stealing or trying to stretch a hit to the next station. Is he hustling? Yes. Has he done great harm to his team’s hopes? Just as yes. Skip, your thoughts?

The Impossible-Ridiculous Cycle  

It’s never happened. It never will unless De La Cruz decides to take it as a personal provocation. The Impossible-Ridiculous Cycle occurs when a walk-off, inside-the-park grand slam is accompanied by a triple, a rulebook double that bounces out of play, and a bunt single. Stupidly unattainable? Yes, but bear in mind I don’t make the rules when I’m making the rules. 

As you were. Torpedo bat!