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On August 14, 2009, the Baltimore Orioles’ Felix Pie hit for the cycle (a baseball term for the single-game feat of hitting a single, a double, a triple and a home run regardless of the order). Pie’s coup happened five days after Troy Tulowitzki accomplished the same feat for the Colorado Rockies, making Pie the seventh player to hit for the cycle in the 2009 season.

Hitting for the cycle has occurred more often in recent years, yet it is still an oddity. Major League Baseball’s record books indicate that in the 35-year period between the start of the 1974 season and the night Pie did it in 2009, hitting for the cycle had occurred only 114 times. That’s an average of a little more than three times a season.

According to Major League Baseball, hitting for the cycle occurs almost as rarely as throwing a no-hitter. Between 1885 and August 14, 2009, major league players hit for the cycle 290 times. During that same period, pitchers threw 282 no-hitters.

The odds of hitting for the cycle in a given game are 1 in 739.2. Not surprisingly, hitting a single is significantly more likely to occur than hitting a double or a triple or a home run. The odds of hitting a single in a given plate appearance are 1 in 6.44. The odds of hitting a double are 1 in 21.14. The odds of a hitting a home run are 1 in 35.26. In Pie’s case, he came up to the plate and singled in the 7th inning having homered and doubled earlier in the game. When he came to bat for a second time in the same inning, Orioles’ fans were well aware that he needed a triple—the toughest hit—to complete the cycle. They surely didn’t realize the odds of doing so are 1 in 203.

Yet Pie did it, ripping a deep fly ball to right centerfield, well over the head of Angels’ outfielder Gary Matthews, Jr. Once he reached third base safely, he joined Brooks Robinson, Cal Ripken Jr., and Aubrey Huff as the only Orioles players to beat the odds and hit for the cycle. “Unbelievable,” Pie said afterwards. “I’ll never forget this game. When I got to the dugout, they hugged me. Good feeling.”