Why do so many pro baseball players have August birthdays? - By Greg Spira - Slate Magazine

Links (7)

Slate: Spira: Why do so many pro baseball players have August birthdays?
Published 4/16/2008 at BBTF's Baseball Primer Newsblog
Slate: Spira: Why do so many pro baseball players have August birthdays? New stuff from old Primer pal Greg Spira… If you find all this data convincing, perhaps you’re already planning an August birth for your little slugger. Not so fast. In 2005, USA Baseball, the nation’s governing body for amateur baseball, announced it was shifting the “league age determination date” from July 31 to April 30. This change was made so the age-cutoff times more closely jibed with the baseball calendar: Under the previous rules, a player who turned 13 on July 30 would’ve been ineligible to play ...

Make Sure Your Child Is Born In August, People [August Babies]
Published 4/16/2008 by Leitch at Deadspin
... Slate, continuing to obsess over the arcane and curious, has discovered that an unusual number of baseball players are born in August. Consult your astrology guides! ...

BASEBALL: August Personages
Published 4/17/2008 by Baseball Crank at Baseball Crank
A good baseball column at Slate (no, really!): why so many U.S.-born major leaguers are born in August and so few in July.

Today's Fun Factoid
Published 4/18/2008 by photi at Fish Chunks
Here's something interesting - "Since 1950, a baby born in the United States in August has had a 50 percent to 60 percent better chance of making the big leagues than a baby born in July." (Doing a really quick search through Wikipedia, I could find only one player on the Fish' current roster who was born in August.) (Slate)

Major Leaguers By Months Of The Year
Published 4/19/2008 by Wrigleyville at wrigleyville23
Your son has a much better chance of being a major leaguer if he was born in August than any other month. My two sons were born in June and July - the least likely months. Damn. ...

Friday Links (25 Apr 08)
Published 4/25/2008 by Geoff Young at Ducksnorts
... Greg Spira at Slate talks about the month in which big-league players are born (h/t ...

Published 7/1/2008 by Aaron (noreply@blogger.com) at AaronGleeman.com
... Jim Furtado, Mike Webber, Anthony Giacalone, Ben Jacobs, Stacy Jacobs, Darren "Repoz" Viola, Kyle Eliason, Steve Treder, Sam Hutcheson, Sean Forman, Chris Jaffe, Mike Emeigh, Jon Daly, Mike McCullough, Greg Spira, Ryan Armbrust, J.D. Schloss, ...