Eight Mets birthdays today!

[Benjamin Grimm]

This may be a record: Eight Mets were born on December 9. (I discovered this while looking up game dates for Irish's memorable games thread.)

* Del Unser (1944)
* Jerry Cram (1947)
* Doc Medich (1948)
* Bruce Boisclair (1952)
* Juan Samuel (1960)
* Mike Fyhrie (1969)
* Tony Tarasco (1970)
* Jeff Duncan (1978)

[Guest Edgy DC]

And such a consistent level of excellence!

[ashie62]

And such a consistent level of excellence![/quote:34bqyn3l]


We all have our niche*

[metirish]

That's very cool but I do wonder what the record would be.....six Mets were born on this day

Doc Edwards (1937)
Ted Martinez (1947)
Doug Henry (1963)
Mel Rojas (1966)
Dan Wheeler (1977)
Victor Diaz (1981)



what's the average?

[Guest Edgy DC]

That's easy. Eight hundred and seventy four Mets divided by 365.25 days in the year gives us an average of 2.3928815879534565366187542778919 Met birthdays celebrated every day, not counting non-playing personnel.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm sure I'm going to feel compelled, before too long, to do some SQLing to get some exact answers. Stay tuned for Mets birthday statistics...

[Frayed Knot]

I'm sure I'm going to feel compelled, before too long, to do some SQLing to get some exact answers. Stay tuned for Mets birthday statistics...[/quote:272y8v5i]

I want to know if there are any "blank" days.
Odds would be against it.

[Guest Edgy DC]

And that would totally be the day I'd pick to induce labor.

[Benjamin Grimm]

I'm pretty sure that there are. When each day is allotted 2 point something, and some days are getting six or eight, then other days will end up below average. I'll list the blank days when I find them. My guess is that there will be a couple of dozen of them.

February 29, though, won't be one of them, thanks to Terrence Long's brief stint as a Met.

[Benjamin Grimm]

Okay, December 9 is the most popular date for Mets players* to be born, with eight. It's tied with October 1. Of the eight Mets born on October 1, two of them (25 per cent!) are named "Chuck."

Chuck Hiller
Buzz Capra
Jeff Reardon
Bob Myrick
Pete Falcone
Chuck McElroy
John Thomson
Brandon Knight

Seven Mets were born on December 1 (Julio Machado, George Foster, Dan Schatzeder, Elliott Maddox, Tom Filer, Herm Winningham, and Greg McMichael) and another seven on December 3 (Wayne Garrett, Mark Bradley, Paul Byrd, Kevin Morgan, Darryl Hamilton, Dave Eilers, and Tobi Stoner). The day in between, December 2, is one of the 29 dates on which zero Mets were born. (01/05, 01/18, 01/25, 01/26, 02/03, 02/06, 02/08, 02/26, 03/06, 03/14, 03/15, 03/18, 04/22, 05/22, 05/26, 05/30, 06/13, 06/14, 07/20, 07/23, 07/26, 07/27, 07/28, 09/10, 10/08, 11/19, 12/02, 12/12, and 12/22.)

This might lead you to think that most Mets were born in December, but you'd be WRONG! December, with 85 Met birthdays, comes in third, behind 30-day months November (93) and April (88). February, with the fewest days, has more birthdays (59) than 31-day July, which came in last with 55.

August has 81, October 79, March 70, September 69, June 67, January 65, and May 63.

Five Mets were born on Christmas Day. Strangely, none of them were named "Noel" or "Holly" or "Joy": Rickey Henderson, Dennis Musgraves, Tom O'Malley, Al Jackson, and Ruben Gotay.

Frank Taveras and Matt Ginter were born on Christmas Eve.

Rick Aguilera is the lone Met to have been born on New Year's Eve, giving his parents a last-minute tax deduction. Fernando Tatis wasn't so courteous. He's the only Met born on New Year's Day, but the tax laws may be different in the Dominican Republic, where he was born.

Pairs of Mets who were born on the very same day:

Donn Clendenon and Bob Miller
Ken Sanders and Gary Kroll
Ron Locke and Jim Fregosi
Phil Hennigan and Leroy Stanton
Gene Clines and Gary Gentry
Bob Gallagher and Tommy Moore
Pepe Mangual and Butch Metzger
Roger Mason and Scott Holman
Rusty Tillman and Bill Latham
Mario Diaz and Jim Lindeman
Rich Rodriguez and Tony Castillo
Wally Whitehurst and Bret Saberhagen
Kenny Rogers and Junior Noboa
Pat Howell and Hideo Nomo
Ken Takahashi and Fernando Vina
Bobby Jones and Alberto Castillo
Carl Everett and Aaron Ledesma
Kris Benson and Glendon Rusch
McKay Christensen and Eric Cammack

* I didn't look at coaches and other non-playing personnel, because the question of where to draw the line can be fuzzy. I'm only looking at the elite 874 human beings who have worn the Mets uniform in regulation play.

[Guest Edgy DC]

Carl Everett and Aaron Ledesma[/quote:3rwjuxl6]
I knew it!

Matt Holliday was born on an unobserved holiday (or an inacurately observed one), the real birthday of MLK.

[metirish]

That is brillaint.....29 dates with zero Mets is a number I would never have guessed......

[MFS62]

Great work, Ben.
I'm not goint to re-post the list of pairs (part of our save the server program).
But it seems that few, if any, of the pairs born on the same day show players of relatively equal ability or baseball fortune.
I wonder how an astrologist would spin that. (maybe time of the day the kid was born ?)

Later

[metirish]

Born on this date.....

Jay Bell (1965)
Derek Bell (1968


Coolness

[MFS62]

Born on this date.....

Jay Bell (1965)
Derek Bell (1968)


Coolness[/quote:29bq26ha]

ding dong.

Later

[G-Fafif]

Born on this date.....

Jay Bell (1965)
Derek Bell (1968)


Coolness[/quote:2mvx615p]

ding dong.[/quote:2mvx615p]

And just a couple of weeks shy of being Christmas Bells.