The best baseball players born on Oct. 29

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 Oct. 29.

1. Jesse Barfield (1959)
A star of the 1980s Blue Jays, Barfield led the Majors with 40 home runs in '86 to shatter the previous Toronto franchise record. He also led the American League in outfield assists every year from 1985-87, throwing out 59 total runners over that stretch. Barfield continued his career with the Yankees, but the two-time Gold Glover was past his physical prime at that point. In retirement, he briefly served as an analyst on Blue Jays broadcasts while his son, Josh Barfield, carved out a four-year Major League career with the Padres and Indians.

2. R.A. Dickey (1974)
One of the most fascinating players of the last few decades, Dickey was a first-round Draft pick who forfeited nearly his entire signing bonus when a post-Draft MRI revealed a missing UCL in his pitching elbow. Dickey signed anyway and struggled in the professional ranks for the better part of a decade, before perfecting a knuckleball that would resurrect his career. Capable of throwing the pitch far harder than prior practitioners such as Phil Niekro and Tim Wakefield, Dickey took the league by storm at age 37, going 20-6 with a 2.73 ERA en route to the 2012 National League Cy Young Award. He subsequently went to the Blue Jays in a blockbuster trade, winning 59 more games over five seasons before retiring at age 42.

3. Ender Inciarte (1990)
From 2016-18, Inciarte won three consecutive Gold Gloves for the Braves, establishing himself as a human highlight reel in center field. He came to Atlanta alongside Dansby Swanson and Aaron Blair in a trade the D-backs came to regret; their return on investment consisted mostly of three injury-plagued seasons from Shelby Miller. Inciarte, meanwhile, won his first ring with the Braves in 2021, despite his release in late July.

4. Will Venable (1982)
In college, Venable was better-known for his prowess as a basketball player at Princeton, where he averaged 10.5 points per game from his sophomore through senior seasons. But he moonlighted on the baseball diamond, doing enough to become San Diego’s seventh-round Draft selection in 2005. Venable signed and eventually became a regular for the Padres, with an OPS+ of 121 during his best two seasons of 2012-13. Upon retirement, Venable became a coach in the Cubs and Red Sox organizations.

5. Karim García (1975)
“Who are you, Karim García?”

Pedro Martínez uttered those words in a famous ESPN interview following 2003 American League Championship Series Game 3, in which Martínez hit García with a pitch to incite an aggressive exchange of words. In his interview, Martínez elaborated that he had “no respect for that guy,” then asked out loud why García would try to challenge “Pedro Martínez, a proven player for 10 years.”

It wasn’t García’s only brush with controversy. In the same game, the outfielder jumped into the bullpen alongside reliever Jeff Nelson, allegedly to engage a Fenway Park groundskeeper in a fight.

Others of note:

Mark Baldwin (1863)
Interested in silly statistics? Baldwin is your man. In just two seasons from 1889-90, Baldwin threw 1,005 2/3 innings over 121 appearances, including 107 complete games. But he won only 60, proving far less effective than Hall of Famer Old Hoss Radbourn had been during his own remarkable two-season run just a few years earlier. Even so, in the pantheon of 19th-century compilers, Baldwin scores high.

Jim Bibby (1944)
On July 30, 1973, Bibby pitched the first no-hitter in Rangers history. He otherwise struggled in Texas, but Bibby blossomed late in his career for the Pirates, going 37-13 with a 3.01 ERA from ages 34-36.

Jose Mijares (1984)
Mijares carved out a six-year career in the Majors, the bulk of that work coming from 2008-11 in Minnesota. During his best year, 2009, Mijares posted a 2.34 ERA over 61 2/3 innings.

Dana Eveland (1983)
Few were as well-traveled as Eveland during an 11-year career. The left-hander’s path took him from Milwaukee to Arizona to Oakland and Toronto, Pittsburgh, Los Angeles, Baltimore, New York (deep breath), Atlanta and Tampa Bay. For those counting, that’s 10 teams in 11 seasons, not counting Minor League stops plus stints in Mexico and Korea.

Happy Finneran (1890)
The 1914 Brooklyn Tip-Tops roster included players named Happy, Grover, Solly, Esty, Tex, and Tip. Only one of them was born on Oct. 29.

Want to see more baseball birthdays for Oct. 29? Find the complete list on Baseball Reference.