The best baseball players born on May 2

May 2nd, 2023

Who are the best players born on each day of the year? We have a list for every day on the calendar.

Here’s a subjective ranking of the top five for May 2:

1) Eddie Collins (1887)
Collins is the only Hall of Famer born on May 2. He won four World Series – three with the A’s (1910-11, ‘13) and one with the White Sox (‘17). A signature player of the dead-ball era, Collins hit .333 for his career with 3,315 hits and 741 stolen bases. He was one of the 13 original Hall of Fame players inducted to Cooperstown when the National Baseball Hall of Fame opened in 1939.

2) Clay Carroll (1941)
Carroll was a two-time All-Star and a signature member of the Reds’ bullpen at the end of the 1960s and into the ‘70s. He was the winning pitcher in Game 7 of the 1975 World Series as the Reds won the title, pitching scoreless seventh and eighth innings. Carroll hit one career homer, too, and it’s one worth noting. It was a two-out, 10th-inning homer off Bob Gibson in St. Louis that gave the Reds a 4-3 lead they wouldn’t relinquish. It was one of just two homers in Gibson's career that he allowed to a player who was in the game as a pitcher. The other came off the bat of Roric Harrison in 1974.

3) Neftalí Feliz (1988)
Feliz won AL Rookie of the Year as a 22-year-old rookie in 2010 with the Rangers. He finished 59 games that year, most in the AL, recording 40 saves. At the time, his 40 saves were second most by a rookie in a season behind only Bobby Jenks’ 41 in 2006. That mark now ranks third, behind Jenks and Craig Kimbrel’s 46 in 2011.

4) Jarrod Saltalamacchia (1985)
Saltalamacchia had a 12-year career, impressive in its own right at such a grueling position like catcher. But the main reason he’s here is because of his record-setting jersey. Saltalamacchia’s 14-letter surname is the longest in MLB history, making his jersey -- all seven of them, from the teams he played for at the MLB level -- historic.

5) Jonathan Villar (1991)
When the all-time single-season home run record for the Majors as a whole was set in 2019, Villar played a key role. His seventh-inning homer on Sept. 11 that season was the 6,106th of ‘19, setting the single-season record. That surpassed the total of 6,105 from 2017, and the final mark landed at 6,776 at the end of the season.

Others of note:
Félix José
(1965)
Though his overall MLB career spanned from 1988 through 2003, José played 11 seasons at the level, with stints in Mexico and Korea in between.

Eddie Bressoud (1932)
One of two AL/NL players other than those listed above to make an All-Star team, along with José.

Want to see more baseball birthdays for May 2? Find the complete list on Baseball Reference.