Birthday Searches in the Play Index
Posted by Sean Forman on December 13, 2010
Shutouts on your Birthday - Baseball-Reference.com.
I've added a couple of searches to the play index. In the game finders you can now search for games that occur on a player's birthday, and in the season finder, you can search for players with a particular month and day for a birthday (eg, all players born on Dec. 14th). Not super serious, but still kind of fun.
December 14th, 2010 at 9:21 am
Will be nice to find some players other than Robin "headlocked by Nolan Ryan" Ventura who were born on my bday...
December 14th, 2010 at 12:58 pm
@1
I thought you could always do that
http://www.baseball-reference.com/friv/birthdays.cgi
December 14th, 2010 at 1:21 pm
Players with three or more extra-base hits on their birthday.
Lou Gehrig did it twice. Only one player has ever (well, since 1920) had four extra-base hits on his birthday, and his team lost.
December 14th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
OK, let me see if I understand the changes. I found guys born on my birthday a long time ago, just to see what kind of All Star Team I'd have. What we can do now, but couldn't before, is something like work up a list of all the guys who ever hit home runs on my birthday? Or a "hitting streak" of guys who got hits on my birthday several years in a row? Stuff like that?
OK, let me plug in my birthday and see what I get.
March 18.
Hmmmmmmmm.......ok.........waiting.........still waiting.......OK, I'll get back to it later.......
December 14th, 2010 at 3:55 pm
This feature is great but it seems more like a "game finder" tool than a "season finder" one.
Only one guy has ever hit a HR on his birthday during the postseason...?
December 14th, 2010 at 5:40 pm
Nice new toy for Xmas! I see Al Simmons, Derrek Lee and A-Rod are the all-time (since 1920, anyway) leaders in homers on their birthday. Simmons and Lee each homered on their birthday in five different seasons. A-Rod homered in only four different birthday games but he homered twice in one of them.
December 14th, 2010 at 7:10 pm
Bobo Newsom has a birthday boy sort of name and was the winning pitcher five times on his birthday (Tim Wakefield and Jerry Reuss each won four times on his birthday). Sad Sam Jones had good reason to be "Sad", as he was the losing pitcher four times on his birthday, more than anyone else except Rick Reuschel, who also a birthday loser four times.
December 14th, 2010 at 10:15 pm
Depending on how the Phillies' rotation plays out, maybe they can get back-to-back shutouts from their starters on August 29-30, 2011, and in the process add two more names to this list.
@1 Bastille Day brings a few decent players into the mix. Tim Hudson is a pretty good current player born that day. Orioles fans of the 1970s and early 1980s may prefer to remember Steve Stone and his Cy Young-winning season, despite his forced early retirement due to injuries, rather than Earl Williams (whom I have mentioned at least once already this week), and most have probably already forgotten reserve infielder Billy Smith.