Top 25 Baseball Birthdays (according to v3)by Vvvergeer - 105 cards (Last updated on Apr 14, 2021) |
Sometime late in 2017, I started paying attention to the birthdays listed on the site. Then I decided I wanted to make a list of the top 10 baseball birthdays, completely subjective, of course.
So here they are.
Methodology: Well first, I used this site. Thank goodness for whomever thought to put "HOF" in red for those players. Because, otherwise, this would have taken forever. I cruised through every day of the year, looking for the red HOF. If I found an "anchor" Hall of Famer, I'd look through the rest of the list, looking for other HOFers, but also all-stars, league leaders, players and managers who had an impact on the game. Then I listed all those players for the dates that seems promising. If there was just one "minor" HOFer, that wouldn't be enough to look at that date more carefully. One "major" HOFer, and I'd check it out. Two HOFers and I'd look closely. Remember, in the end, I cruised past every baseball player who is listed in this database.
But THEN I stumbled into the fact that Baseball Reference has sortable lists of every player born on each day -- sortable by WAR! So I basically started the whole project over and reviewed every...single...day...to see what players had the highest WAR on each day, and I listed the top candidates. I got down to about 60 days pretty easily, then cut it to 41 without a lot of trouble, then found my way down to 25, which I then arranged in "order."
But first, I searched for a similar list on the internet. To my relief, I didn't find one, really. I did find a list of baseball birthdays by total war of all players, but I didn't consider that as a factor.
In the end, I basically looked at the top three WAR for each date, and then checked to see if other significant players were also born on that date. I didn't give a ton of credit to dates with one player with a huge WAR, but no significant other stars to back him up. Think Babe Ruth, Cy Young. There is probably a slight modern slant. I decided to focus on players, but used other prominent baseball figures as tie-breakers. (Think Marvin Miller.)
These candidates dates are just my opinion. Feel free to argue. Or to research better dates.
As to the cards I picked, if I had one of his cards in my collection, I went with my favorite of those, otherwise, I just picked what I liked. Just so I don't have to state whether I have the card every. single. time, if it's 1969 or later, I definitely own the card.
All stats from Baseball Reference.com
Picking a top 25 wasn't too hard. Ordering them 1 to 25 was almost random silliness.
I've been working on this list for a long, long time. And now I've finally pulled the trigger. So without further babbling, I present my list of the Top 25 Baseball Birthdays.
Enjoy.
v3
31. 1972 Topps #764 Dusty Baker
#18
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32. 1983 Topps #364 Brett Butler
#18
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33. 1980 Topps #196 Lance Parrish
#18
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34. 1975 Topps #30 Bert Blyleven
#17
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35. 1933 DeLong Gum (R333) #6 Gordon "Mickey" Cochrane
#17
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36. 1934-36 National Chicle Diamond Stars (R327) #36a Ernie Lombardi
#17
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37. 1914 Fatima (T222) #NNO Red Smith
#17
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38. 1909-11 American Caramel (E90-1) #NNO Fred Clarke
#16
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39. 1974 Topps #456 Dave Winfield
#16
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40. 1985 Topps #163 Dennis Eckersley
#16
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Comments
First of all great idea for a list. Okay, 3 Hall of Famers for #1 date. Nice and I agree with that selection, but May 18th should be higher on your list with two stud HOFers in Reggie and Brooks. In my recollection no one's hit better in the off-season than Mr. October in a different era where pitching at a batter was part of the game, and 3rd base was not a place to hit when Robinson was there. | ||
You could well be right. I debated moving that up. And I might tweak it later. Thanks for the input. | ||
Started on it, but now you have it closed for editing. Fun list. I assure you I will read the whole thing very soon. | ||
Ok. First adjustment made. Moved Reggie and Brooks up a notch or two. v3 | ||
When I got to Musial/Griffey, I couldn't imagine how you would top that. You did. Nice work on this list. I enjoyed it a lot. | ||
I love that my birthday is on the list at #11. | ||
Great list. Can't argue with your #1. Agree with the move up of Reggie & Brooks. I'm left somewhat envious of your "Haves" and now I have a bunch more cards to add to my "Wants". | ||
Noticed around card number 60 that Halliday hasn't been made a HOF yet | ||
aha, not shocked today is #1. | ||
Would you believe you are not the only crazy person to do a list like this? I did almost the same exact thing. Took me 18 months to complete it. But I took it a step further, I looked at each date, focused on their career WAR, and put together a 25 man roster, the starting 8, a DH, 5 bench players, 5 starting pitchers, 6 relievers. And when i was all done and looked at the spreadsheet, the best team is....drum roll please...November 26th. This team did not crack your top 25. Many other dates have much better top 3,4,5 players, but this team is balanced. Check it out. |
