Here’s a little baseball trivia for you: how many major league baseball players with the first name of “Ryan” have there been in baseball history?
The answer is 45.
Here’s another one: how many of those players played before 1990?
The answer is one: Ryan Kurosaki.
What’s going on here? Has the overall popularity of the name “Ryan” spiked in the last 30 years? Are teams more likely to sign guys named Ryan? What’s the deal?
We have a theory: a whole generation of children born during Nolan Ryan’s hey-day have been named after the Ryan Express by baseball-crazy fathers, and those same baseball-crazy fathers have also raised their sons to be ballplayers.
Crazy? Perhaps. But the evidence, albeit circumstantial, is there.
For example, let’s take a look that the 2010 All-Ryan All Star Team.