How many Hall of Famers and All-Stars have a given birthday?
Posted by Andy on February 16, 2011
A commenter recently pointed out that the team of best players with a Valentine's Day birthday isn't very good.
I guess when we look up any particular day, we hope to find a few Hall of Fame players and a whole bunch of All-Star caliber players.
Here's a bit of a reality check, though.
The Hall of Fame has 295 members. That total includes 60 people who made it as a manager, pioneer, execute, or umpire, meaning there are only 235 Hall of Fame players. That works out to an average of just about 0.65 Hall of Famers per day, and since a few probably have the same birthday I'm guessing as many as 40% of the days of the year have no Hall of Famers born that day.
I made a rough approximation of the total number of All-Star appearances and it looks to be about 4,000. That's the total number of times any player made the All-Star team. It looks like there have been something like 1,300 different players elected to at least one All-Star game, meaning that the average number of All-Star game appearances per All-Star player is about 3.
With about 1,300 All-Star players, that's an average of about 3.5 such players per day.
What does this mean? A typical average birth day would have 0 or 1 Hall of Famers and 3 or 4 players with a total of about 10 All-Star appearances.
So, yeah, a date with no Hall of Famers and just 1 player with 1 All-Star appearance is definitely well below average.
What dates can you find that are above or below average?
February 17th, 2011 at 6:09 pm
My birthday is pretty bad (3/10). It looks like the best hitter in the last 100 years is John Cangelosi or Tike Redman. Craig Ansman of the Tigers was actually the same day and from his birthplace possibly even the same hospital as me, but I don't think he made the majors.
February 17th, 2011 at 8:17 pm
@95, For your list of 23-Aug 20-May, how about Ron Blomberg (Aug. 23) for DH?
February 17th, 2011 at 10:17 pm
My birthday, December 7, is pretty good. One Hall of Famer (Johnny Bench) and twenty-six total All-Star appearances by seven different players (14 by Bench).
Plus, Tino Martinez, who was always a favorite of mine.
February 17th, 2011 at 11:30 pm
Dec. 20 is Patricia, my wife's birthday.
Branch Rickey and Gabby Hartnett are the two Hall of Famers to share that date.
Hartnett died on his birthday. The only other All Star selection to die on that day was Tommy Byrne.
Besides Hartnett (6) and Byrne (1) who were on All Star squads are David Wright (5) and Cecil Cooper (5).
February 17th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Beason and Jackson Tuck, my twin grandsons, were born on July 14. In an earlier comment it mentioned that there was nobody in the HOF born on that day.
That is true, but there were seven players who were selected to All Star games. They are: Tim Hudson (3), Jose Hernandez (1), Robin Ventura (2), Steve Stone (1), Billy McCool(1), Bob Purkey (5) and Johnny Murphy (3).
Jackie Jensen is the only player listed who died on that day.
February 18th, 2011 at 7:33 pm
Seeing December 20 in one of the past couple of posts got me curious about 2 days later, December 22. This date seems to have a lot of guys who were associated with Philadelphia teams born on it.
I knew of Hall-of-Famers Connie Mack and Steve Carlton already. They are the only ones so far for this date.
All Star Game appearances:
Glenn Wilson = 1 (while with the Phillies in 1985)
Lonnie Smith = 1 (while with St. Louis in 1982; had played for the Phillies earlier)
Ken Landreaux = 1
Steve Garvey = 10
Steve Carlton = 10 (7 while with St. Louis, 3 while with the Phillies)
Matty Alou = 2
I'm surprised that Mike Jackson, who had two stints with the Phillies (although in the second one, after he was an established closer, he never made an appearance due to injuries), did not make an All Star Game during his years as a decent closer with Cleveland in the late 1990s.
Two other players born on Dec. 22 who were with the Phillies were Tom Underwood and Tony Curry. I'd have to spend more time to see if any of the old-timers were also Phillies or, like Mack, were Philadelphia Athletics.
To get to the December 22 page, I had to go through the one for today, February 18. While Dec. 22 is a birthdate of some successful pitchers (and others) who spent time with the Phillies, Feb. 18 is the birthdate of some disappointments - Tyler Green, Kyle Abbott, and Rocky Childress.
Various success stories for today include:
Hall-of-Famer Joe Gordon
All Star Game appearances:
Alexis Rios = 2
Shawn Estes = 1
Tyler Green = 1 (he had one good half-season, 1st half 1995, good enough for ASG selection)
Rafael Ramirez = 1
Jerry Morales = 1
Manny Mota = 1
Luis Arroyo = 2
Joe Gordon = 9
And a guy with a namesake son trying to make the Phillies this year:
John Mayberry = 2