Baseball’s about to get started again, but before the Cubs and Dodgers take the field in the Tokyo Dome on Tuesday, let’s take one more look back at last season, when baseball history was made, a decades-old record was smashed—and nobody noticed.

I’m talking about the Baltimore Orioles who, in 2024, hit into 71 double plays.

Quick explainer: A double play happens when the batter hits a ball, typically weakly and on the ground, and not only does he get thrown out, but his teammate who was already on base gets thrown out as well. It’s the most demoralizing thing that happens on a baseball field, snuffing out a promising rally in an instant. So fewer is better.

The 2024 Orioles’ 71 is the lowest full-season total in the history of Major League Baseball. No team hit into that few double plays when they only played 154 games. No team hit into that few double plays when they all wore wool pants. In fact, no team had ever hit into fewer than 75 double plays, a record set by the 1945 St. Louis Cardinals and equaled by the 2021 Tampa Bay Rays. The 2024 Orioles were, by a handsome margin, the best baseball team at not hitting into a double play that there has ever been.

You didn’t hear about this on ESPN or in the New York Times. You didn’t even hear about it from the Orioles themselves. That’s because they didn’t know. Sig Mejdal, the Orioles’ vice president and assistant general manager, told me he knew the team’s avoidance of the DP was a strength, but he didn’t totally believe me that the team had set an all-time record until he looked it up himself. “The people I’ve mentioned it to were quite surprised,” he told me.

What made the Orioles so good at not grounding into double plays? History offers little guidance. The list of least-GIDP-ing teams in history has good teams, like the 100-win 2021 Rays (75 DP), and lousy teams, like the 99-loss 1967 Royals (79 DP). Some of these teams didn’t hit into a lot of double plays because they barely ever had a man on first (1967 Royals again). Some of them, like the 1986 Cardinals (83 DP), stole tons of bases, which reduces the number of DP situations. But the 2024 Orioles had plenty of singles and walks, and not a lot of steals. They did hit the ball with elevation; their ground ball percentage of 40.3 percent was fourth-lowest in the majors. But that means three other teams hit even fewer ground balls, and yet many more of those turned into double plays. Frankly, I’m stumped.

To be fair to every other baseball team in history, double plays around the league are in modest decline. There were just 0.66 per team, per game in 2024, the lowest total in decades . Maybe this has something to do with the banning of the shift, or the rule allowing video review of the “neighborhood play” (otherwise known as the “We’ll just say the second baseman touched the bag because he had the vibes of having touched the bag” play).

But does it matter? We don’t discount the slugging accomplishments of Pete Alonso or Aaron Judge because they play in the homer-happy 21 ^st century. Every team had the opportunity to hit into the fewest double plays ever. Only the Orioles did it.

It’s not quite fair how unheralded this was. We pay attention to things that happen, especially when they happen unusually often or with unusual force. But we neglect the negative space of things that spectacularly, extraordinarily fail to happen. Those things are important! Nowhere more so than in baseball. Is there any moment more characteristic of the sport than the 3–2 count with the bases loaded in a tie game, when the whole stadium goes elbow-to-knee to see if the batter can successfully not hit the ball, successfully not even try to hit the ball, winning the game thereby?

Anybody can cheer for Judge whanging his 50-somethingth ball into the stands. It takes a little connoisseurship to follow a reliever’s scoreless-inning streak, or Luis Arráez going a whole month without striking out , or Jim Palmer facing a bases-loaded jam 213 times in his 19-year career and never once giving up a grand slam. Or the Orioles, coming up again and again with a runner on first and less than two outs and managing not to weakly ground-ball their way out of a rally.

Regression to the mean spares no one, and the 2025 Orioles will likely hit into more double plays than they did in 2024. But let’s pledge to go into the new season with a conscious appreciation of their achievement. I can’t wait to see what they don’t do this year.