Precocity Predicts Shorter Life for Major League Baseball Players: Confirmation of McCann's Precocity-Longevity Hypothesis

Abstract

We tested McCann's precocity-longevity hypothesis, which proposes that early career achievement is related to premature death, for Major League baseball players (N = 3,760). Age at debut was the definition for precocity. We controlled for possible artifacts of life expectancy selection, the "healthy worker" effect, player position, and body-mass index. Statistically significant Pearson correlations occurred between precocity and longevity, and remained significant when adjusted for artifacts. In a hierarchical multiple regression, every year a baseball player debuted before the average age of 23.6 years was associated with life span being shortened by 0.24 years. The results support the hypothesis that earlier achievement is associated with earlier death.

Does Early Career Achievement Lead to Earlier Death? Assessment of the Precocity-Longevity Effect in Professional Basketball Players

“…First, we replicated Abel and Kruger’s (7) definition of achievement as “age upon entering professional sport.” In addition, in order to have a measure of achievement more independent of age, and more indicative of eminent achievement in this population, two other indicators of achievement were included, “age at first All-Star game” and “age at first All-League selection.” For each indicator of achievement, variables were computed using a player’s first notable achievement. This was necessary because the ABA only existed from 1967 to 1976, and therefore some players debuted in the ABA and transferred to the NBA (and vice versa ).…”

“…Specifically, these analyses used a subsample of only deceased players who had debuted prior to 1980 ( n  = 598), similar to previous research on eminent athlete and non-athlete samples (1, 7). As such, all coding of the achievement measures in this portion of the analyses were based on the values (i.e., median ages of achievement) obtained from the deceased subsample of NBA players.…”

“…However, contemporary research suggests a more complicated relationship between components of Type A personality (i.e., hostility and anger) and disease [e.g., Myrtek (6)]. Nevertheless, previous studies on the P-L relationship may have examined samples that likely fall in some components of the Type A personality category, such as professional baseball players (7) and eminent persons such as presidents, prime ministers, and monarchs (1), making personality type a potential mechanism.…”

“…To date, however, only a few studies have investigated the existence and generalizability of the P-L effect in the athletic disciplines. Abel and Kruger’s (7) investigation of deceased Major League Baseball (MLB) players noted that when precocity was defined as age in which athletes debut professionally, there was a significant relationship with life span longevity; for every year a player debuted before the average age of 23.6 years (SD = 2.3), their life span decreased by 0.24 years. Further, correlations between debut age and longevity were higher in Hall of Fame inductees relative to non-inductees (0.48 vs. 0.09, respectively), which further supported the proposition that precocious achievement may have negative effects on longevity.…”

“…Both Abel and Kruger (7) and Lemez et al (9) defined precocious achievement in athlete samples as the age at which athletes entered professional sport. However, using age of professional sport debut as a measure of achievement may be impacted by the fact that the age range for professional sport debut is typically quite narrow (7). If this range is sufficiently narrow, it would be difficult to find clear support for the P-L effect as the age difference between “early achiever” and “late achiever” would be quite small.…”