The best baseball players born on Nov. 15

November 15th, 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 Nov. 15.

1) (1992)
Story burst onto the Major League scene in 2016 by rewriting history seemingly every day. He not only homered for his first MLB hit but also became the first player to go deep twice in an Opening Day debut. He wasn't nearly done. Story also became the first to go deep in his first three games -- and the first to do so with his first four HITS. He then walloped a pair of long balls in his fourth game en route to recording seven home runs in his first six games and tying a then-record by hitting his first 10 in 21 games. When Story recorded his first three-homer game in '18, his second blast traveled a projected 487 feet. In '19, he hit the 100th and 101st homers of his career in the same game, becoming the fastest shortstop to reach the century mark. Clearly never one to shy away from a storybook opportunity, his second homer of that game? A walk-off. Story was an All-Star and Silver Slugger Award winner in each of those two seasons.

2) (1928)
Who was the first baserunner in Mets history? Yes, this man. But that is merely a footnote to his 15-year Major League career, and Gus Bell is much more than a trivia question. A member of the Reds Hall of Fame, he is the patriarch of a three-generation MLB family -- the father of five-time All-Star Buddy and the grandfather of David and Mike (who tragically passed away in 2021. One might hear the distant chiming of a fourth-generation Bell in Mike's son, Luke, who was drafted in '19). A four-time All-Star with Cincinnati, Gus had four 100-RBI seasons and played in the '61 World Series before the Mets plucked him in the expansion draft. Before his Reds days, Gus hit for the cycle with the Pirates in '51 -- and when David did it in '04, they became the first grandfather-grandson combo to achieve the feat. The forebearer of this proud baseball family sadly passed away in '95 ... four days after David made his MLB debut.

3) (1992)
Bundy's road turned rocky quickly after he was selected with the fourth overall pick by the Orioles in the 2011 MLB Draft. In his '12 debut, he pitched a total of 1 2/3 innings before undergoing Tommy John surgery. Little did he know, he would not return to the Majors until the '16 season. When he came back, he slowly began to rediscover the form that made him such a high Draft pick and an intimidating Minor League hurler. He flirted with a no-hitter in back-to-back games against the Rockies and Rangers as he re-entered the rotation and, in the following year, he recorded his first MLB shutout -- a one-hitter with 12 strikeouts against the Mariners, with his only hit allowed a bunt single. Dealt to the Angels before the '20 season, Bundy earned Cy Young votes in his first of two seasons in Anaheim.

4) Pedro Borbon (1967)
As a youth, Borbon soaked in the clubhouse vibes of the Big Red Machine, with whom his father was a two-time World Series winner. Growing up, the younger Borbon -- a natural right-hander -- taught himself how to throw left-handed, and he broke in as a reliever for the perennial division champion Braves from 1992-96. He went on to win his own ring in the '95 World Series against the Indians, during which he authored his career-defining moment. In Game 4, 19 days after his first career postseason game in the NLDS, Borbon entered the bottom of the ninth with a three-run lead and a runner on second -- and he struck out Jim Thome and Sandy Alomar Jr. before earning the clutch save when he induced Kenny Lofton into a deep lineout. Atlanta went on to win it all in Game 6, and the two playoff games he pitched represent Borbon's only postseason experience.

5) Maurice Van Robays (1914)
Van Robays played six seasons with the Pirates (1939-43; '46), with his best year by far coming in '40, when he drove in 116 runs and batted .273 with 11 home runs over 145 games. But perhaps the outfielder's greatest contribution? Coining the term "eephus." During the '42 season, teammate Rip Sewell introduced an extraordinarily slow, floating and mystifying pitch. After the game, Van Robays described it as "eephus" -- spelled "efes" in Hebrew -- and when reporters inquired about the meaning of the word, he colorfully replied: "Eephus ain't nothin, and that's a nothing pitch."

Others of note:

Pat Ragan (1883)
Ragan played for seven Major League teams from 1909-23. He became a workhorse right-hander for the Brooklyn Dodgers, making at least 25 starts and pitching at least 200 innings from 1912-14, while tossing an immaculate inning against the Boston Braves in '14 -- and at that time, he was only the third pitcher in AL/NL history to do it. In '19, he pitched only one inning in the regular season for the White Sox -- the team that went on to win the pennant and lose to the Reds in a World Series that was overshadowed by the Black Sox scandal.

Mickey Livingston (1914)
A journeyman catcher, Livingston played for six teams over 10 years -- perhaps most notably serving as the starting backstop for the Cubs in the 1945 World Series, during which he hit .364. In his final season, he was a teammate of Jackie Robinson on the '51 Brooklyn Dodgers.

Want to see more baseball birthdays for Nov. 15? Find the complete list on Baseball Reference.