Frankel: Intentional BB’s - did Fielder/Cabrera do something special?

No, but having a Warren Cromartie(!) mention is!.

Stories have already been written about how the combination of Fielder and Miguel Cabrera was going to and did form a formidable duo in the middle of the lineup.  This duo did produce as Cabrera batting 3rd, produced a Triple Crown season - .330, 44 HR, 139 RBI, while Cecil Fielder, batting 4th, produced a .313, 30, 108 line. 

What has not been talked about too much is the Intentional Walks that they were issued - Fielder, 18 and Cabrera, 17.  This gave them the #1 & #2 positions in the AL. 

This got me thinking as to how often this has occurred in MLB history.  Well, first of all, IBB’s have only been “officially” recorded since 1955 (based on what I see in B-R), so I had to limit myself to 1955 to date - no checking on Crawford/Cobb; Ruth/Gehrig, though these and other combos may well have been 1-2 in their leagues.

After going through all of the leader boards from 1955 to present, I found 4 other seasons in which the top 2 players in IBB’s were from the same team:

3.  1980 - Montreal Expos:  Warren Cromartie (24), Chris Speier (18)

...I was very surprised to see Cromartie as the leader in IBB’s.  I do remember the name and that was about it (they were all up North in that ugly place called Olympic Stadium).  He had a decent year, but nothing that would shout out IBB!  And look at the hitters behind him, both names that you have heard of.  Granted Parrish’s numbers are nothing special, but still.  I did a little more digging on Cromartie and saw that he hit .353 in June and .321 in July, surrounded by mostly sub .270 numbers.  What happened in June & July for Cromartie, I am not sure, but he received half of his 24 IBB’s in those 2 months,  He received 9 more in Sept/Oct when he had an OPS of .713.