I Have 6 Brothers

[Dorthea Seate]

TheScience of Siblings is a new series exploring the ways our siblings can influence us, from our money and our mental health all the way down to our very molecules. We'll be sharing these stories over the next several weeks.

That's why, when he saw my inquiry about a statistical finding that connects sexuality and birth order, he was wary. "To be frank, I find these kinds of studies that're looking for something rooted in the body to explain sexuality to be kind of bunk. I think they rely on a really binary understanding of sexuality itself," he said.

"That's fair," I conceded. But this connection between queerness and older brothers has been found so many times in so many places that one researcher told me it's "a kind of truth" in the science of sexuality.

The first research on this topic did indeed begin in the 1940s and '50s, during that era of investigations into what causes homosexuality, to be able to cure it. At the time, the queer people whom scientists were studying were living in a world where this facet of their identity was dangerous. Plus, the studies themselves didn't find much, says Jan Kabtek, a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne.

"Most of it fell flat," he told me. "But there is an exception to this, and that is the finding that men, specifically, who exhibit attraction to the same sex are likely to have more older brothers than other types of siblings."

"This pattern has been documented around Canada and the United States, but it goes well beyond that," says Scott Semenyna, a psychology professor at Stetson University. "There's been now many confirmations that this pattern exists in countries like Samoa. It exists in southern Mexico. It exists in places like Turkey and Brazil."

The effect is cumulative: The more older brothers someone has, the bigger it is. If you have one older brother, your probability of being gay nudges up to about 2.6%. "And then that probability would increase another 33% if there was a second older brother, to about 3.5%," Semenyna says.

Still, even 8% is pretty small. "The vast majority of people who have a lot of older brothers are still going to come out opposite-sex attracted," Semenyna says. Also, plenty of gay people have no brothers at all, or they're the oldest in their families. Having older brothers is definitely not the only influence on a person's sexuality.

"But just the fact that we are observing effects that are so strong, relatively speaking, implies that there's a good chance that there is, at least partially, some biological mechanism that is driving these associations," Kabtek says.

For decades, the leading candidate for that biological mechanism has been the "maternal immune hypothesis," Semenyna explains. "The basic version of this hypothesis is that when a male fetus is developing, the Y chromosome of the male produces proteins that are going to be recognized as foreign by the mother's immune system and it forms somewhat of an immune response to those proteins."

That immune response has some effect on the development of subsequent male fetuses, Semenyna says. The plausibility of this hypothesis was bolstered by a 2017 study that found "that mothers of gay sons have more of these antibodies that target these male-specific proteins than mothers of sons who are not gay or mothers who have no sons whatsoever," he says.

But now that Kabtek's study of the Dutch population has found that this pattern was present among women in same-sex marriages as well, there are new questions about whether this hypothesis is correct.

At the same time, he agrees that the idea of a connection with gay people being the youngest kids in their families is kind of hilarious. "One thing that pops into my mind is, like, maybe if you're just surrounded by a lot of men, you either choose or don't choose men, right?" he laughs.

Then again, scientists are unlikely to be able to resist that mysterious, weird complexity. Even if the joy and self-expression and community and so many other parts of queerness and sexuality will always be more than statistics can explain.

Just weeks after signing B.J. Upton, the Braves traded for his brother, Justin. As anyone who remembers my fawning over Justin Upton in November already knows, I'm something of an Upton groupie, so my initial reaction was jealousy. When you factor in that I've also got something of a crush on Jason Heyward (we Jasons have to stick together), clearly I'm quite taken with Atlanta's new outfield, which I think is probably the second-best in baseball now, after only Anaheim.

Last August both Upton brothers hit their 100th career home run on the same night, a pretty neat coincidence (and quite a night for Mother Upton, I'm sure). At the time, I wrote about where the Uptons ranked among all the siblings in MLB history. There are a lot of impressive families on that list, and I don't think the Uptons have done enough to even crack the top twenty yet. Now that they're teammates though, they join a more exclusive list.

According to Baseball-Almanac (and my own counting skills) since the National League began play in 1876 there have been 100 sets of brothers that played as teammates, on Opening Day the Uptons will become the 101st. I thought it would be fun to pick out some tidbits of information about those who've played on the same team as their brother(s) and then rank the brothers who played together for the Indians.

* The Alou, Cruz, and Wright families are the only in history to have three brothers play as teammates at the same time. George, Harry, and Sam were all together on the 1876 Boston Red Stockings (they eventually became the Braves), Hector, Jose, and Tommy Cruz were on the 1973 St. Louis Cardinals, and Felipe, Jesus, and Matty Alou were all teammates on the 1963 San Francisco Giants.

* Arthur and John Irwin, Roberto and Sandy Alomar, and Lloyd and Paul Waner are the only brothers to play as teammates on three different teams. The Irwins spent one season together with the Worcester Ruby Legs, one with the Washington Senators, and one with the Boston Red Stockings. The Alomars spent time together on the Padres, Indians, and White Sox. The Waners spent most of their careers as teammates on the Pirates, but also played together on the Braves and Dodgers.

* The Braves have had the most sets of brothers, with 9 (the Uptons will be #10). The Pirates have had 8 different sets and the Cardinals have had 7. The Giants have had 6 sets, including the Alou trio. The Athletics lead the American League with 6 different sets.

* There have been 137 seasons since the National League was organized in 1876 (the American League dates to 1901). There has been at least one set of brothers playing as teammates in 112 of those 137 years. The longest streak of such years was from 1911 to 1945, 35 straight seasons with sibling-teammates. From 1957 to 1965 there were at least two sets of brothers playing as teammates. The longest stretches without any brothers playing together lasted just three seasons, first from 1899 to 1901 and then again from 1949 to 1951.

* In 1884 there were six sets of brothers playing as teammates, which is the most ever: Dan and Dennis Casey, Larry and Mike Corcoran, Bill and Ed Dugan, Barney and Frank McLaughlin, Jimmy and Lou Say, and Fleet and Welday Walker.

* Lloyd and Paul Waner played together for a record 16 seasons. Joe and Luke Sewell were teammates in 10 seasons, while Hank and Tommie Aaron, Mort and Walker Cooper, and Billy and Cal Ripken were all together in 7 different seasons.

*Lloyd and Paul Waner are the only brothers to play as teammates and both be inducted to the Baseball Hall of Fame as players (George and Harry Wright were both inducted, but Harry was inducted as a manager).

* All told there have been 19 players inducted to the Hall of Fame as players who spent time during their career playing with their brother(s): Hank Aaron, Roberto Alomar, George Brett, Fred Clarke, Dizzy Dean, Ed Delahanty, Buck Ewing, Rick Ferrell, Tony Gwynn, Barry Larkin, Christy Mathewson, Phil Niekro, Gaylord Perry, Cal Ripken, Joe Sewell, Lloyd Waner, Paul Waner, Zack Wheat, and George Wright (Tom Glavine, Vladimir Guerrero, and Pedro Martinez all stand a good chance of joining that list in the next 5-10 years).

2) Roberto and Sandy Alomar (1999-2000) - Sandy played catcher for the Indians from 1990 to 2000. Roberto was the Tribe's second baseman from 1999 to 2001, so they were together on the team for two full seasons. During 1999 and 2000, Sandy played just 134 games, but was still a league-average hitter, as catchers go. Roberto's time in Cleveland was arguably the peak of his career. In the two years he played with his brother, Roberto had an OPS of .903, played in two All-Star Games, won two Gold Gloves and two Silver Sluggers, and finished 3rd in the 1999 A.L. MVP voting.

1) Joe and Luke Sewell (1921-1930) - Joe began his career in 1920 with the Indians and played for them through 1930. Luke's career began a year later, also with Cleveland. They were teammates for ten years. From 1921 to 1930 Luke (a catcher) played in 767 games. While said to be a solid defender, he couldn't hit a lick. His line for those years was .259/.315/.335, good for an OPS+ of 67 (his career OPS+ of 70 is 15th worst in history among non-pitchers with 5,000+ PA). Joe, on the other hand, was the best shortstop in baseball during the 1920s, worth an average of more than four WAR a season during the years he played with Luke. He finished in the top ten of the MVP voting four times and his career OBP of .391 is third-best in history among shortstops. Joe's stellar play and he and Luke's long tenure as teammates makes them an easy choice for the top spot on this list.

The final point of this blog is a question. Protestants ask: with all due respect (and I mean this), why would it matter if Mary had additional children after she gave birth to Jesus? After all, she was a married woman and children are a natural fruit of a marriage covenant as ordained by God (see Gen. 1:28). What reason do Catholics have that causes them to hold so tightly to the belief that Mary was ever-virgin?

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