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 March 2.

1) Mel Ott (1909)
Ott, the lone Hall of Famer who has a March 2 birthday, was born in Gretna, La., just across the Mississippi River from New Orleans, and it didn’t take him long to get his 22-year MLB career underway. “Master Melvin” debuted at 17 years old for the New York Giants, the club he’d spend his entire career representing until he retired at 38. While not as physically imposing as other home run hitters, Ott had a gift for them, leading the National League in home runs in six seasons en route to 511 career homers. The right fielder and third baseman, who played 2,730 games, was inducted into the Hall of Fame in 1951.

2) Ron Gant (1965)
Like Ott, Gant had a long tenure in the Majors, playing for 16 seasons, but he split that time across eight clubs. His longest stay was with the Braves, who drafted him out of the Texas prep leagues in 1983. Beginning as an infielder before moving to the outfield in ’89, Gant made waves in Atlanta from the jump, placing fourth in NL Rookie of the Year Award voting in ’88 and garnering NL MVP Award votes in three of his seven seasons there. Gant also won the NL Comeback Player of the Year Award in ’95, when he recorded a .940 OPS with 29 home runs after missing all of ’94 due to a broken right leg sustained in a dirt bike accident.

3) Mort Cooper (1913)
While now a more minor figure in the storied history of the St. Louis Cardinals, Cooper was an ace on two of the three World Series-winning teams of the 1940s. The first came in ’42, when Cooper won the NL MVP Award with a 1.78 ERA and MLB-best 22 wins and 10 shutouts. The latter came in ’44, when the Missouri native struck out 12 in seven innings of Game 5 against the cross-town Browns to set up a title win in Game 6. Cooper was traded to the Boston Braves in 1945 after a contract dispute, but he -- and his brother, Walker -- left their marks on those historic Cardinals teams.

4) Terry Steinbach (1962)
Steinbach garnered All-Star selections three times in his 14 seasons in MLB, and he also won the All-Star MVP Award in 1988 by hitting a homer off Mets legend Dwight Gooden in the American League’s 2-1 victory. But he provided an even bigger hit in ’89, when his three-run triple in Game 4 of the World Series put the game out of reach of the Giants and secured a sweep for the A’s.

5) Woody English (1906)
Few will remember this shortstop and third baseman from the early 1900s, but English was a strong defender and received MVP votes in 1931, when he played all 156 games for the Cubs while hitting .319. That mix of hitting and defending gave him a 27.0 bWAR in 12 years.

Others of note:

Jim Konstanty (1917)
Konstanty made bullpen history in 1950, when he became the first reliever to win an MVP Award by leading the league in saves (22) and games pitched (72) with a 2.66 ERA in 152 innings.

Glen Perkins (1983)
A fellow reliever, Perkins pitched for 12 seasons and enjoyed a strong peak: He recorded a 2.84 ERA with 120 saves from 2011-15, a span in which he earned three All-Star selections.

Adolis García (1993)
García was an All-Star for the second time in his career and won his first career Gold Glove Award in 2023, while also helping the Rangers to their first World Series championship with his monster postseason performance.

Want to see more baseball birthdays for March 2? Find the complete list on Baseball Reference.