18 thoughts on “Where in the world do pro athletes come from?”
Hi! I’m an associate producer at Sports Illustrated: Extra Mustard, and we’d love to share these infographics. Could you shoot me an email so we can talk about the best way to do that?
re: the MLB chart – curious you’d isolate san diego in california, as there are almost 2x players born in Los Angeles and its suburbs. I’m guessing you strictly sorted by ‘Los Angeles.’ also – more from Florida than California? sounds dubious.
When it comes to the big city you’re right, the large metro areas might have been short changed a bit. I tried to keep to a pretty strict definition of city boundaries rather than get into the grey area of city vs. greater metropolitan areas.
As for the states, note the percentages, California has more than twice the players that Florida does (22% of total US players vs. 10.6% – multiply these by 0.728 to get percentage of entire league).
With the College power houses in Florida I will go with Florida. Florida State, University of Florida and Miami. They also have a few more Central Florida and Florida Atlantic. Add almost every team in the SEC and ACC have kids from Florida. Like it or not Florida is producing a lot of Football players for the Pros.
I’m curious where you’re getting your data from. Because even if you use a strict “city of Los Angeles” boundary (I seriously doubt you’re using the same strict city limit boundary for Houston), LA still leads the majors in player production.
But just in the city of LA, you still have:
Mike Moustakas (Chatsworth)

Giancarlo Stanton (Sherman Oaks)

Ryan Bruan
 (Northridge)
Jared Weaver (Northridge)

Aaron Hicks (San Pedro)

Justin Sellers
 (Bellflower)
Tyler Skaggs (Woodland Hills)

Evan Longoria (Downey)

Max Fried (Encino)
Matt Dominguez (Van Nuys)
Kevin Pillar (West Hills)
Chris Dickerson (Hollywood)
Trevor Bauer (North Hollywood)
Zach Britton (Panorama City)
Coco Crisp (South LA)
Dan Haren (Monterrey Park)
Trevor Plouffe (West Hills)
Chad Qualls (Lomita)
Cesar Ramos (East LA)
Ricky Romero (East LA)
Brendan Ryan (Sherman Oaks)
Josh Satin (West Hills)
Justin Turner (Lakewood)
Danny Worth (Northridge)
Not to mention the dozens others from the burbs of San Gabriel Valley, the South Bay, Orange County, Inland Empire, Ventura County, the Desert, etc.
SPORTCHART 
Hi! I’m an associate producer at Sports Illustrated: Extra Mustard, and we’d love to share these infographics. Could you shoot me an email so we can talk about the best way to do that?
Your NBA map links to your NHL map.
Fixed it now. Thanks for pointing it out to me 🙂
NBA picture links to NHL picture.
re: the MLB chart – curious you’d isolate san diego in california, as there are almost 2x players born in Los Angeles and its suburbs. I’m guessing you strictly sorted by ‘Los Angeles.’ also – more from Florida than California? sounds dubious.
When it comes to the big city you’re right, the large metro areas might have been short changed a bit. I tried to keep to a pretty strict definition of city boundaries rather than get into the grey area of city vs. greater metropolitan areas.
As for the states, note the percentages, California has more than twice the players that Florida does (22% of total US players vs. 10.6% – multiply these by 0.728 to get percentage of entire league).
With the College power houses in Florida I will go with Florida. Florida State, University of Florida and Miami. They also have a few more Central Florida and Florida Atlantic. Add almost every team in the SEC and ACC have kids from Florida. Like it or not Florida is producing a lot of Football players for the Pros.
That should read Baseball Players. I guess I have my mind on Pig skins.
I’m curious where you’re getting your data from. Because even if you use a strict “city of Los Angeles” boundary (I seriously doubt you’re using the same strict city limit boundary for Houston), LA still leads the majors in player production.
But just in the city of LA, you still have:
Mike Moustakas (Chatsworth)

Giancarlo Stanton (Sherman Oaks)

Ryan Bruan
 (Northridge)
Jared Weaver (Northridge)

Aaron Hicks (San Pedro)

Justin Sellers
 (Bellflower)
Tyler Skaggs (Woodland Hills)

Evan Longoria (Downey)

Max Fried (Encino)
Matt Dominguez (Van Nuys)
Kevin Pillar (West Hills)
Chris Dickerson (Hollywood)
Trevor Bauer (North Hollywood)
Zach Britton (Panorama City)
Coco Crisp (South LA)
Dan Haren (Monterrey Park)
Trevor Plouffe (West Hills)
Chad Qualls (Lomita)
Cesar Ramos (East LA)
Ricky Romero (East LA)
Brendan Ryan (Sherman Oaks)
Josh Satin (West Hills)
Justin Turner (Lakewood)
Danny Worth (Northridge)
Not to mention the dozens others from the burbs of San Gabriel Valley, the South Bay, Orange County, Inland Empire, Ventura County, the Desert, etc.
See the full list here: http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/birthplace.php?loc=California&y=2012
Almost forgot…. Blue Jay’s future ace Marco Estrada… from Sylmar High School, CITY of Los Angeles.
By my math, that’s 25 current MLB players from the city of Los Angeles.
Not including all the suburbs of Greater LA.