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 8.

1) Dick Allen (1942)
Allen was a big-time hitter right from the start, leading the Majors in runs scored (125) and triples (13) for the Phillies in 1964, winning the NL Rookie of the Year Award. He began as a third baseman and was an All-Star in each of his next three seasons, during which he hit .308/.390/.560 and led the NL with a .404 on-base percentage in '67. He had a turbulent career, often involving racial undertones or outright racial issues. After brief stops with the Cardinals and Dodgers, he moved to the White Sox, for whom he led the AL or AL/NL in numerous offensive categories -- 113 RBIs, a .308/.420/.603 slash line with a 1.023 OPS -- and was named the AL MVP. He was an AL All-Star from 1972-74 before returning to Philadelphia and finishing up with Oakland in '77. He finished his career with a .292/.378/.534 line, 351 home runs and 1,119 RBIs in 1,749 games. He twice has missed election to the Hall of Fame by a single vote in Golden Days Era Committee balloting.

2) Jim Rice (1953)
Another right-handed hitter with tremendous power, Rice drove in 102 runs in 1975 only to finish second in Rookie of the Year voting to teammate Fred Lynn. But in '78, Rice had a season for the ages, leading the AL/NL in nearly everything -- 46 homers, 139 RBIs, 213 hits, .600 slugging, .970 OPS -- and won the AL MVP Award over the Yankees' Ron Guidry, who had gone 25-3 that season. Rice had one more huge season in him, in '83, when he led the AL in homers (39) and the Majors in RBIs (126), the first of another four straight 100-plus RBI and four straight All-Star seasons. Rice had six top-5 MVP placements and eight All-Star Game appearances in his career. He finished with a .298/.352/.502 line with 1,451 RBIs over what amounted to 14-plus seasons. He made the Hall of Fame in his 15th and final time on the writers' ballot in 2009.

3) Carl Furillo (1922)
The "Reading Rifle" was the right fielder for the storied "Boys of Summer" Brooklyn Dodgers teams of the 1950s. He received MVP votes in eight of his 15 seasons and won a batting title with a .344 average in 1953, one of five seasons in which he hit better than .300. Adept at playing balls off the high concave right-field wall at Ebbets Field, he recorded 10 or more assists in nine straight seasons, including 24 in '51 -- hence his nickname. Furillo hit .314 with a career-high 26 homers for the 1955 World Series champions, Brooklyn's only World Series victory. He'd win another Series ring with the Los Angeles Dodgers in '59. Furillo finished his career in '60 with a .299 average -- one more hit in his career would have given him a .300 average. He installed elevators at the World Trade Center after his playing days.

4) Jim Bouton (1939)
Bouton won 39 games in his first two full seasons, including 21 in 1963, when he made his only All-Star team, and he won twice in the Yankees' World Series loss to the Cardinals in '64 before blowing out his arm, but that's not at all for which he's remembered. "Ball Four," the earth-shattering diary of his 1969 season with the expansion Seattle Pilots (and later the Astros) broke ground as no other sports book had to date. A staunch supporter of the fledgling players union, he shared his thoughts on the issues of the times and told behind-the-scenes stories, including those involving performance-enhancing drugs and sex, involving himself and his teammates, all while professing and sharing his love of baseball. In 1996, "Ball Four" was named on the New York Public Library's list of Books of the Century. "A book deep in the American vein, so deep in fact it is by no means a sports book," Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam wrote of "Ball Four."

5) Pete Fox (1909)
Fox never led his league in any offensive category, but he was an All-Star for the Red Sox in the war-torn 1944 season, when he hit .315 in his next-to-last year as a player. He played 13 seasons, eight with the Tigers and five with Boston, finishing with a .298 average and .347 OBP. He received MVP votes in four seasons, and batted .327 in three World Series, hitting .385 for Detroit in its six-game victory over the Cubs in '35.

Others of note
Juan Encarnacion (1976) was a two-time World Series winner, with the Marlins in 2003 and Cardinals in '06. ... Tommy Pham (1988) played for five teams in the first nine seasons of his career before joining the Mets prior to the 2023 season. He finished the season with the D-backs, helping to lead Arizona to a surprise NL pennant. ... Harry Lord (1882) was a third baseman for the Red Sox and White Sox early in the century, accumulating career WAR of 16.4. His career ended with the Buffalo Blues of the "outlaw" Federal League in 1915. ... Bob Grim (1930) was an All-Star and led the AL/NL with 19 saves for the 1957 Yankees. ... Bianca Smith (1991) joined the Red Sox in 2021 as a Minor League coach, making her the first Black female coach in professional baseball history. She previously played softball and club baseball at Dartmouth and worked in the baseball programs at Carroll University, Case Western Reserve University and the University of Dallas.

Want to see more baseball birthdays for March 8? Find the complete list on Baseball-Reference.