TODAY’S SPORTSTAT-Who was the best MLB player born on Valentine’s Day?
By JERRY TAPP
How about a little Valentine’s Day stat?
Who is the greatest baseball player ever born on Valentine’s Day, February 14?
Is it Kelly Stinnett, a catcher who played 14 seasons in the majors for eight different teams from 1994-2007?
How about another catcher, Earl Smith, who played from 1919 to 1930?
Or, is it Tyler Clippard, a relief pitcher who is currently a free agent? He has played 11 seasons in the majors; he played for three different Major League teams in 2017.
Here’s a quick look at the players born on February 14th who have the most career home runs, hits, pitching wins and saves (Must have started MLB career after 1900 to qualify for the lists below).
Home Runs
65-Kelly Stinnett (1994-2007)
63-Derek Norris (2012-17)
46-Earl Smith (1919-30)
Hits
686-Earl Smith (1919-30)
623-Larry Melbourne (1974-84)
476-Kelly Stinnett (1994-2007)
Wins
69-Red Barrett (1937-49)
64-Dave Dravecky (1982-89)
48-Tyler Clippard (2007-17)
Saves
84-Takashi Saito (2006-12)
61-Tyler Clippard (2007-17)
36-Damaso Marte (1999-2010)
So… who is your choice for baseball’s greatest player born on Valentine’s Day?
Follow Jerry on Twitter @StatsonTapp
Jerry Tapp
Jerry Tapp is a freelance writer from Racine, WI with a major concentration on sports statistics and numbers that define sports teams and players. He began his foray into sports stats-focused writing as a regular contributor to the “Numbers” column in Inside Sports magazine in the mid-1980’s and then began writing a weekly “Stats on Tapp” column for the Racine Journal Times. That column was eventually nationally syndicated by Universal Press Syndicate. He later wrote sports stats items for the Washington Post under the “Stat of the Day” heading. After launching his blog, www.statsontapp.com in 2011, Jerry turned his sports stats attention to sports websites. He wrote regularly for Bleacher Report, BallHyped, football.com and Heavy.com. Today he keeps busy writing weekly columns of stats-centric articles for three sports websites, Today’s Pigskin (NFL), Today’s Knuckleball (MLB) and Today’s Fastbreak (NBA), and as a monthly contributor to the Milwaukee Brewers “GameDay” publication that is distributed to fans attending games at Miller Park.