In the beginning, there was no baseball. But ever since, there have been few beginnings as good as the start of a new baseball season. It is the most splendid time in sport, in part because baseball is about the only sport left—now that football players report to training camp before the Fourth of July, and hockey players start skating in Indian summer—that still has a time and is true to it.
While we're waiting for "the most splendid time" to get underway, whenever that will be, I want to share a research project I did last year on the 25-man Opening Day rosters for each team. I used a mathematical principle that states:
In a room of just 23 people, there’s a 50-50 chance of at least two people having the same birthday.
This is not a math blog, so I won't get into the details right now. You can read more about it on sites such as Better Explained and Wikipedia. But I figured that with 25 men on each roster, the odds were good that at least 15 of the 30 teams would have at least two players with the same birthday. In fact, 17 teams had such pairs, and some even had multiple pairs. One team even had three players with the same birthday!
Here are the teams and the players involved. Some of the players are no longer with the teams with whom they're listed here.
National League East:
Philadelphia Phillies - Rhys Hoskins and Jean Segura, March 17
Washington Nationals - Patrick Corbin and Yan Gomes, June 30
National League Central:
St. Louis Cardinals - Andrew Miller and Matt Wieters, May 21
Cincinnati Reds - Raisel Iglesias and Michael Lorenzen, January 4; Kyle Farmer and Jesse Winker, August 17; Eugenio Suarez and Derek Dietrich, July 18
National League West:
Colorado Rockies - Daniel Murphy and David Dahl, April 1
Los Angeles Dodgers - Ross Stripling and Justin Turner, November 23
San Diego Padres - Phil Maton and Kirby Yates, March 25
American League East:
Boston Red Sox - Ryan Brasier and David Price, August 26; Christian Vazquez and J.D. Martinez, August 21
New York Yankees - Adam Ottavino and Austin Romine, November 22
American League Central:
Cleveland Indians - Adam Cimber and Oliver Perez, August 15; Roberto Perez and Hanley Ramirez, December 23
Minnesota Twins - Ryne Harper and Jake Odorizzi, March 27
Chicago White Sox - Alex Colome and Kelvin Herrera, December 31
Kansas City Royals - Tim Hill, Jorge Lopez, and Alex Gordon, February 10; Brad Keller and Adalberto Mondesi, July 27 (both in 1995)
American League West:
Houston Astros - Chris Devenski and Wade Miley, November 13; Alex Bregman and Jake Marisnick, March 30
Los Angeles Angels - Ty Buttrey and Peter Bourjos, March 31
Seattle Mariners - Chasen Bradford and Domingo Santana, August 5
Texas Rangers - Kyle Dowdy and Rougned Odor, February 3; Shawn Kelley and Nomar Mazara, April 26
The Atlanta Braves, Miami Marlins, New York Mets, Chicago Cubs, Milwaukee Brewers, Pittsburgh Pirates, Arizona Diamondbacks, San Francisco Giants, Baltimore Orioles, Tampa Bay Rays, Toronto Blue Jays, Detroit Tigers, and Oakland Athletics had none.
I did this exercise in 2017, and exactly half of the 30 teams had matches. One highlight from that one: the Blue Jays had two players born on 19 October and two exactly a week later on 26 October.
2019 American League Rookie of the Year Yordan Alvarez of the Houston Astros did not debut until June 9, 2019, but even if he had started the season with the Astros or any other team, he would not have had a matching birthday on the team. No players born on his birthday of June 27 were on any 25-man Opening Day rosters in 2019. Stefan Crichton, who appeared with the Diamondbacks but was not on the team's 25-man Opening Day roster, was the only major leaguer born on February 29 to appear in the majors in 2019, so he wouldn't have had a match, either.
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