In baseball, a triple is the act of a batter safely reaching third base after hitting the ball, with neither the benefit of a fielder's misplay (see error) nor another runner being put out on a fielder's choice.

Because a hit only counts as a triple without a fielding error or a fielder's choice, triples have become somewhat rare in Major League Baseball. It often requires a hit to an unoccupied part of the ballpark (as in an opposite-field hit) or the ball taking an unusual bounce in the outfield. It also requires that the batter be able to hit the ball solidly but also that he be able to run quickly. This combination of power and speed is rare, and combined with the trend for modern ballparks to have smaller outfields (to increase the number of home runs hit), it has ensured that the career and season triples leaders mostly consist of players who played earlier in the sport's history.

Because the hit is so rare, a triple is considered one of the most exciting plays in baseball. It is also an essential element in the achievement of hitting for the cycle.

Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond. Players on the batting team take turns hitting against the pitcher of the fielding team, which tries to stop them from scoring runs by getting hitters out in any of several ways. A player on the batting team can stop at any of the bases and later advance via a teammate's hit or other means. The teams switch between batting and fielding whenever the fielding team records three outs. One turn at bat for each team constitutes an inning and nine innings make up a professional game. The team with the most runs at the end of the game wins.

Evolving from older bat-and-ball games, an early form of baseball was being played in England by the mid-eighteenth century. This game was brought by immigrants to North America, where the modern version developed. By the late nineteenth century, baseball was widely recognized as the national sport of the United States. Baseball is now popular in North America, parts of Central and South America and the Caribbean, and parts of East Asia.