Crowdsourcing: Blue Eyed Players

Earlier this week, Josh Hamilton created some headlines when he claimed his eye color was the cause of his struggles during day games. ESPN found an optometrist who supports his theory, so maybe it’s not as crazy as it initially sounded. I immediately wanted to look at the data to see if other blue-eyed players had similar struggles in the day time, but realized that there isn’t exactly a comprehensive database of eye color for Major Leaguers.

But, the FanGraphs audience watches a lot of baseball (when they’re not staring at spreadsheets, anyway), and you guys have some observational powers, so I’d like to try crowdsourcing this. Here’s what I’m asking from you guys – in the comments, give us evidence of players who have blue eyes. Photos are probably the best option, but an article from a reputable source that references a player’s blue eyes probably works too.

If we can get a decent sized sample of players who can be confirmed to have blue eyes, we can look and see how they did in day games compared to night games, and see whether there’s anything to Josh Hamilton’s claims after all. Once we have a decent amount of names, we’ll crunch the data and report the results.

Go crowd go.





Dave is the Managing Editor of FanGraphs.

161 Comments
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greg
12 years ago

How should I classify Max Scherzer?

Cody
12 years ago
Reply to  greg

I immediately thought the same thing. Have there been any regular major league hitters with two different colored eyes?

Disco Burritos
12 years ago
Reply to  Cody

How about switch hitters with two different colored eyes?

joser
12 years ago
Reply to  greg

Actually, if the problem exists it might be almost the same for blue or green eyes. The optometrist in the linked article says as much.

“Because of the lack of pigment in lighter color eyes, like blue or green eyes as opposed to brown, you get a lot more unwanted light and that can create glare problems,” Dr. Ison said.

So maybe we’re just looking at brown vs non-brown irises. Though — assuming there’s anything to this at all — it very well could be more complicated than that. There are multiple genes responsible for eye-color, so one blue eye is not necessarily like the next, and if we’re talking about the fine line of distinguishing the rotation of the seams on an approaching baseball, slight variations might make all the difference.

Dave
12 years ago
Reply to  joser

I’m an optometrist as well, and it is 100% true.