Madeline Gearheart | July 5, 2022

Who in your state played their professional sport for the longest time?

The Major League Baseball (MLB) has been around for decades, and in turn, featured many players with careers ranging from very short to very long. Those longer than average careers caught the eye of the team at USDISH: We wanted to find out which athlete played the longest amount of time or the most amount of games in baseball from each state.

Even with player and owner lockouts in baseball’s history, baseball athletes managed to put in significant years on the diamond. When the average length of a baseball career amongst our list was nearly 21 years, you know some players exceeded that tenure. From Cap Anson of Iowa to Nolan Ryan of Texas, who both played for 27 years in the majors, check out which baseball athlete in your state played the most in America’s National Pastime.

Methodology

USDISH used pro-reference from major U.S. sports to get information about the length of each athlete’s professional career in time as well as how many games they played.

• https://www.baseball-reference.com/bio/

Some states might be missing, meaning there was no athlete from that state that met the criteria, or no information was available on the reference pages.

State	Athlete Name	Years in MLB	Active From	Active To	Games Played	Number of Baseball Players by State
Alabama	Henry Aaron HOF	23	1954	1976	3298	476
Alabama	Willie Mays HOF	23	1948	1073	2005	476
Alabama	Early Wynn HOF	23	1939	1963	796	476
Alabama	Don Sutton HOF	23	1966	1988	611	476
Alaska	Curt Schilling	20	1988	2007	402	12
Arizona	Ian Kinsler	14	2006	2019	1888	129
Arizona	Ron Hassey	14	1978	1991	1192	129
Arizona	Jeremy Affeldt	14	2002	2015	573	129
Arkansas	Brooks Robinson HOF	23	1955	1977	2896	217
California	Jesse Orosco	24	1979	2003	571	2,376
California	Dennis Eckersley HOF	24	1978	1998	218	2,376
Colorado	Rich Gossage HOF	22	1972	1994	388	99
Connecticut	Jim O'Rourke HOF	23	1872	1904	1999	207
Delaware	Chris Short	15	1959	1973	465	62
District of Columbia	Johnny Klippstein	18	1950	1967	930	111
District of Columbia	Pop Snyder	18	1873	1891	713	111
Florida	Steve Carlton HOF	24	1965	1988	699	659
Georgia	Ty Cobb HOF	24	1905	1928	3034	513
Hawaii	Charlie Hough	25	1970	1994	456	48
Idaho	Harmon Killebrew HOF	22	1954	1975	2435	30
Illinois	Rickey Henderson HOF	25	1979	2003	3081	1,105
Indiana	Tommy John	26	1963	1989	452	407
Iowa	Cap Anson HOF	27	1871	1897	2524	225
Kansas	Walter Johnson HOF	21	1907	1927	934	232
Kentucky	Woodie Fryman	18	1966	1983	564	336
Louisiana	Rusty Staub	23	1963	1985	2951	339
Maine	George Gore	14	1879	1892	1310	78
Maryland	Al Kaline HOF	22	1953	1974	2834	343
Maryland	Harold Baines HOF	22	1980	2001	2830	343
Maryland	Babe Ruth HOF	22	1914	1935	2503	343
Massachusetts	Rabbit Maranville HOF	23	1912	1935	2670	672
Michigan	Jim Kaat	25	1959	1983	840	444
Minnesota	Dave Winfield HOF	22	1973	1995	2973	173
Mississippi	Cool Papa Bell HOF	21	1922	1946	1199	264
Missouri	Frank Duncan	22	1920	1945	850	671
Missouri	Jerry Reuss	22	1969	1990	552	671
Montana	John Lowenstein	16	1970	1985	1368	26
Nebraska	Pete Alexander HOF	20	1911	1930	703	119
Nebraska	Mel Harder	20	1928	1947	584	119
Nevada	Barry Zito	15	2000	2015	433	49
New Hampshire	Mike Flanagan	18	1975	1992	526	54
New Jersey	Kid Gleason	22	1888	1912	1968	463
New Mexico	Vern Stephens	15	1941	1955	1720	31
New York	Eddie Collins HOF	25	1906	1930	2826	1,244
North Carolina	Gaylord Perry HOF	22	1962	1983	512	476
North Dakota	Darin Erstad	14	1996	2009	1654	20
Ohio	Deacon McGuire	26	1884	1912	1781	1,079
Oklahoma	Willie Stargell HOF	21	1962	1982	2360	296
Oklahoma	Willie Wells HOF	21	1924	1948	1038	296
Oklahoma	Lindy McDaniel	21	1955	1975	865	296
Oregon	Syl Johnson	19	1922	1940	542	137
Pennsylvania	Bobby Wallace HOF	25	1894	1918	2383	1,476
Pennsylvania	Jamie Moyer	25	1986	2012	236	1,476
Rhode Island	Nap Lajoie HOF	21	1896	1916	2480	79
Rhode Island	Johny Cooney	20	1921	1944	159	79
South Carolina	Bobo Newsom	20	1929	1953	609	239
South Carolina	Nat Rogers	20	1923	1945	489	239
South Dakota	Dave Collins	16	1975	1990	1701	39
South Dakota	Terry Foster	16	1971	1986	429	39
Tennessee	Rick Dempsey	24	1969	1992	1765	397
Texas	Nolan Ryan HOF	27	1966	1993	807	1,088
Utah	Bruce Hurst	15	1980	1994	379	41
Vermont	Carlton Fisk HOF	24	1969	1993	2499	38
Virginia	Jud Wilson HOF	21	1923	1945	900	363
Virginia	Eppa Rixey HOF	21	1912	1933	694	363
Washington	John Olerud	17	1989	2005	2234	216
Washington	Ron Cey	17	1971	1987	2073	216
Washington	Jeff Conine	17	1990	2007	2024	216
West Virginia	George Brett HOF	21	1973	1993	2707	130
Wisconsin	Lave Cross	21	1887	1907	2277	252
Wyoming	Dick Ellsworth	13	1958	1971	407	16

Interesting Findings

• Twenty-seven years was the longest of any player across all four major sports, and baseball had two of them. From 1871 to 1897, Cap Anson of Iowa played for the Chicago White Stockings, even when they rebranded to the Chicago Colts. Nolan Ryan of Texas played from 1966 to 1993 and stayed close to home, playing for the Houston Astros and Texas Rangers most of his career.
• On the other end of the spectrum, Dick Ellsworth of Wyoming played for 13 years from 1958 to 1971, the shortest career on our list of longest careers per state. He only had 15 other players from the Cowboy State to compete with, the smallest number of baseball players coming out of a state.
• 32 of the 70 players on our list were inducted into the Hall of Fame. Some more recognizable names include Babe Ruth (Maryland), Willie Mays (Alabama), and Ricky Henderson (Illinois). 
• No state produced more long-tenured athletes than Alabama with four, including Mays, Henry Aaron, Don Sutton, and Early Winn—all 23-year careers, all Hall of Famers.

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