I mentioned on the most recent BBA Today episode that Resurrection Santos III gets extra credit from me when considering his future HoF candidacy because he was born in the greatest city in the world, Chicago. He was born there, no doubt, because Resurrection Santos broke into the league as a member of the Chicago Black Sox (somebody will have to drop a link into the comments clarifying what happened to Resurrection Santos II--I can't find him on statsplus).
I tend to notice when players list Chicago as their city of birth because I live in Chicago. Over time, I've recognized it associated with several players, both within the San Fernando organization and outside of it. It seemed like too many players, frankly, considering the cold weather here. I figured it couldn't possibly be a coincidence. Does commish give the Midwest extra weight since he lives in these parts? Maybe the game's calculations turn up Chicago more frequently since it is the largest BBA city (counting Brooklyn as its own place)?
Anyways, I decided to pull city of birth for all active BBA players and see which location appears most often.
| City | Player Count |
|---|---|
| Chicago IL | 16 |
| New York NY | 14 |
| Buenos Aires BUE | 10 |
| Brooklyn NY | 9 |
| Los Angeles CA | 9 |
| Omaha NE | 9 |
| Sydney NSW | 9 |
| Bayrut BAY | 8 |
| Melbourne VIC | 7 |
| Rushton Spencer ENG | 7 |
| San Juan SAN | 7 |
That's cool! It's not just personal bias. Chicago really is the most common city of birth for BBA players (with the caveat the game is separating New York and Brooklyn). Does Chicago produce a bunch of role players and one of the other cities represents more talent?
| City | Total Player WAR |
|---|---|
| Chicago IL | 307.5 |
| New York NY | 196.4 |
| Los Angeles CA | 164.2 |
| Rushton Spencer ENG | 159.8 |
| Omaha NE | 156.3 |
| Indianapolis IN | 146.2 |
| Cairo CAI | 141.5 |
| Bayrut BAY | 140.2 |
| Mexico City DIS | 138.6 |
| Melbourne VIC | 135.3 |
Nope, Chicago's edge looks even more dominant when we sum total career WAR.
Northern cities (the Midwest in particular) are overrepresented for reasons I can only hypothesize. Maybe global warming means teams north of the Mason-Dixon line can play year-round now?
Another peculiar city turns up too. What in the heck is Rushton Spencer? Wikipedia tells me it's a village in England currently populated with 485 people and doesn't even have its own website. So either it's a metropolis by 2063 or more than 1% of their residents are BBA-caliber baseball players.
Somebody should write a whole feature about Rushton Spencer, but this post is about Chicago. There's not a great pool of pitchers to choose from, but check out the Chicago hometown lineup you can create.
| Position | Player |
|---|---|
| C | Sam Butler |
| 1B | Lorenzo Holloway |
| 2B | Randy Wright |
| SS | Jose Villa |
| 3B | Hector Jiminez |
| LF | Jorge Delgado |
| CF | Ed Rooney |
| RF | Resurrection Santos III |
| DH | Ivan Quintana |
How many games could this group win in the BBA if you gave them a league average pitching staff?
