The Generational Player

Ah, that Tom Tango loves to send us on wild goose chases, doesn’t he? Today’s features an idea: The generational player. You will, every now and again, hear someone called that, called a “generational player.” This could just be another way of saying, “that player is awesome!” But the term itself seems to suggest that we’re talking about a player who “comes along once in a generation.”

A generation is generally viewed as a 15-to-25-year period. I saw this list of generations:

Born between 1901 and ’24: The Greatest Generation

Born between 1925 and ’45: The Silent Generation

Born between 1946 and ’64: The Baby Boomer Generation

Born between 1965 and ’80: Generation X

Born between 1981 and ’96: Millennial Generation

Born between 1997 and ’12: Gen Z

So, the term “Generational player” at least offers the possibility that there is ONE baseball player from each of those generations who so stands out from the rest, that he, and he alone, would be the only generational player.

Tango finds this to be nonsensical. In 1951—a single year—Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle both made their MLB debuts (Mays had already played in the Negro leagues). They are obviously both generational players by anybody’s definition. Three years later, Henry Aaron made his debut. He’s a generational player by anybody’s definition.

Tango believes that a so-called generational player—as most of us would think about the term—comes along at least once every three years. Sure, there are some gaps that are longer than three years, but there are also other years where two generational players come up. In broad terms, he thinks that a decade will feature at least three generational players.

So, I decided to put this to the test, JoeBlogs style.