Risky Business

First, lets celebrate the 2-1 series against the Mets. Teixeira's grand slam was a beautiful, beautiful thing.

But I really want to discuss this article in the New York Times a month ago, about a study conducted about siblings and risk. It describes a study by Frank J. Sulloway and Richard L. Zweigenhaft for the current issue of Personality and Social Psychology Review.

The two wanted to see if siblings acted differently with regard to risk given their birth order. They used MLB siblings as they're data group. The article reads, "Given how younger siblings have been shown to take more risks than their older counterparts — perhaps originally to fight for food, now for parental attention — Drs. Sulloway and Zweigenhaft examined whether the phenomenon might persist to the point that baseball-playing brothers would try to steal bases at significantly different rates."

Their findings supported their hypothesis. In over 90 percent of baseball siblings, the younger brother tried to steal more bases than his brother. They also controlled for overall skill.

Anecdotally, it's totally true that younger siblings take bigger risks. I'm a complete perfectionist, who spends hours antagonizing over simple decisions. Seriously, it will take me a minimum of twenty minutes to decide whether or not I want whip cream on my waffles if we go out for breakfast. Mike can attest to this. We went out for Indian last night and it was a huge deal that I ordered something I'd never gotten before. This is a risk for me.

Mike, on the other hand, dives head first in situations. I don't want to say he does things blindly, but he's much more likely take a risk than I am.

If you put both of us on first base, there's no doubt in my mind that he'd steal and I'd wait. It's just the way we are.

The researchers offer up possible explanations for this behavior in younger siblings, such as "originally fighting for food, [and] now for parental attention."

In my case, my risk-averse nature has nothing to do with fear of losing food or parental attention. And everything to do with a fear of failure. I don't want to screw up, so I take the safe track.

Mike, I'm interested to know what you think about this article.