How Baseball Primer Is Rigged For Lefties

Fixed.

Flame on!

We understand you're upset when Primer links to something with Science in the title.

Tell it to all the lefthanders playing second, third, short and catcher, poindexter!

Run the bases clockwise three days a week. Problem solved.

Tell it to all the lefthanders playing second, third, short and catcher, poindexter!

As a right handed first baseman I cry for relief from the tyranny of Science!

Run the bases clockwise three days a week. Problem solved.

If one league ran the bases clockwise, and the other ran them counter-clockwise, would the distribution of players by league change significantly? That is, would you trade a right-handed player for a lesser left-hander, based on their handedness?

Tell it to all the lefthanders playing second, third, short and catcher, poindexter!

IMO this is why the infield was set up this way with the direction to first base being to the batter's right side. If the direction around the diamond was the other way, the infield would have required a majority of lefthanders. Either that or the idea of hitting a ball and running the direction you are facing (for righthanded batters) was what resulted in the direction of the diamond route. It wasn't an enlightened decision, but rather a choice of convenience which became tradition.

why is there no poinsinister?

We may have baseball but scissors, manual transmissions, golf pro shops and all mouses (mice?) for computers are strictly the right-hander's domain. We lefties have been forced to acclimate to a right-handed world. Give us something.

manual transmissions

Move to the UK then. Just another Blame America First Liberal.

We may have baseball but scissors, manual transmissions, golf pro shops and all mouses (mice?) for computers are strictly the right-hander's domain. We lefties have been forced to acclimate to a right-handed world. Give us something.

And what about polo? Banned.

Frankly, I've never felt that my swing helped me get to first faster. Yes, my arms are point toward first, but my legs and head are still pointing toward the pitcher, requiring me to reorient myself, particularly my feet, which I have to open up behind me before I can run to first. A righty's arms go toward third, but they merely have to step with their back foot to get their feet situated to sprint to the bases. It's a much smoother transition. Any speed advantage a lefty has is purely because the distance is shorter, I think.

I didn't notice much difference driving in Japan vs. the U.S.

Just think of all the advantages left-handed swimmmers enjoy.

why is there no poinsinister?

Because there's already a Bar Sinister.

We may have baseball but scissors, manual transmissions, golf pro shops and all mouses (mice?) for computers are strictly the right-hander's domain.

And spiral-bound notebooks, the bane of lefthanders.

If only we could write from right to left three days a week.

Ted Williams used to say that being a lefty power hitter created no advantages in terms of getting to first base faster, in fact it was a disadvantage in his eyes. The advantage is for those lefties like Ichiro who don't take big swings and are half way out the box when they do swing.

Lefty power hitters are generally falling away from first base when they swing and have to come back toward first to start running.

Frankly, I've never felt that my swing helped me get to first faster. Yes, my arms are point toward first, but my legs and head are still pointing toward the pitcher, requiring me to reorient myself, particularly my feet, which I have to open up behind me before I can run to first.

Are you a human, or a robot awkwardly constructed for some 8th grade science fair?

If only we could write from right to left three days a week.

Take up Arabic or Hebrew. Problem solved!

Are you a human, or a robot awkwardly constructed for some 8th grade science fair?

Quite human. Think about it. A lefty's feet are roughly parallel with the plate as he waits for the pitch. As the pitch comes he steps and plants his right foot, with his toes facing somewhere between 270 and 0 degrees toward the pitcher. As he hits the ball his hips open up so that they are roughly facing the pitcher. His body is facing the pitcher, his hands on follow through are on the first base side. The baseline to first base is roughly 45 degrees from the direction his feet and hips are pointing. Try this experiment. Stand with your right foot forward and left foot back in a fairly deep stance. Now try to on a line 45 degrees to your right. You have to bring the front right foot back or way to the right to get your left foot in position to head toward the base. It's damn awkward.

As a right handed first baseman I cry for relief from the tyranny of Science!

Thank goodness, we have Ben Stein going after "Big Science". Relief is on the way.

Quite human. Think about it. A lefty's feet are roughly parallel with the plate as he waits for the pitch. As the pitch comes he steps and plants his right foot, with his toes facing somewhere between 270 and 0 degrees toward the pitcher. As he hits the ball his hips open up so that they are roughly facing the pitcher. His body is facing the pitcher, his hands on follow through are on the first base side. The baseline to first base is roughly 45 degrees from the direction his feet and hips are pointing. Try this experiment. Stand with your right foot forward and left foot back in a fairly deep stance. Now try to on a line 45 degrees to your right. You have to bring the front right foot back or way to the right to get your left foot in position to head toward the base. It's damn awkward.

As mentioned above, it's all dependent on the nature of your swing. Some lefties (see every major college softball player), get great milage out of it, as their swings end with them in full sprint toward first. For others, it's not an edge.

Nor have lefty skiers ever had a winner on a counter-clockwise downhill.

If lefties hit most of their grounders to the right side, a shorter throw, and righties to the left, a longer throw, do the righties have more opportunities to reach on those infield hits generated by a long throw? Also, does anyone have numbers to show if switch-hitters are better from the left side compared to their right?

as one of the posters to the article noted, the game is merely somewhat favorable to lefthanders, not 'rigged' in their favor.

20, are you kidding? as a lefthander, i have to say batting from that side is definitely an advantage. playing softball, i used to almost always beat out a high bouncing ground ball to the third base side. when you finish your swing, you are leaning towards first. you don't have to recover all the way, you can let your momentum take you in the right direction and you are already on the first base side of the plate. of course the quality of the competition can minimize the advantage, but fielders have to hurry the play for a lefthanded guy who can get out of the box quickly, which leads to a higher probability of reaching base.

on reading my comment, i have to say i'm being a bit contrarian. we lefthanders have a slight advantage, not as big as i make it sound. sorry to be so wishy washy.

that's the other thing about lefthanders. lefthandedness is a pathology according to some of the latest research. we're a little messed up. so we tend toward the eccentric, esp. in extreme situations, like professional sports and internet posting boards.

clemenza

they make left handed scissors. i have a pair. i know they make lefty golf clubs. and i just use the mouse on the left.

- and i know the "experts" say being lefthanded is "not normal." and that we have a shorter life compared to rightys. but i think it is from having more accidents living in a righty world. i know more of us are dyslexic that is fer SHER. i wonder if more geniuses are lefty too

and we could do a new survey here - which would be kewl - but i think that at least 1 of 3 people who post on this here board are left handed. i remember talking about this a few years ago.

You don't have to be lefthanded to learn to hit lefty.

And this article is about as scientific as Intelligent Design.

What's the next research project, how basketball is rigged for tall people?

Those born with blades on their feet have an inherent advantage in ice hockey. How can we level the rink?

Baseball Is Rigged For Lefties

Someone tell Delgado.

Field hockey, now THAT's a sport rigged for righties. Stupid field hockey sticks.

I do most things right-handed, but my left side is stronger than the right.

Don't know if that accounts for my eccentricity.

bchick, that's the point. it's not 'normal' when you are so much in the minority.

and while actuarially, yes, we may be more prone to shorter life spans because of the perils of being lefthanded in a righthanded world, how we became lefthanded is puzzling researchers who are beginning to believe that it is less a matter of recessive genetics than genetic damage ...

but we're talking in the aggregate. just because intelligence and other traits are adversely measured in lefthanders in general, a given lefthander can be smarter, faster, more adroit, etc. than a given righthander.

a lefthander like you!

well phred,

being lefty must be in the DNA like blue eyes. which is also in the minority of humans and not "normal"

and being lefty runs in the family just like blue eyes

so is this "damage?"

or do you mean damage like sickle or cistic firbosis (sp?)

alex,
you are probably a lefty who was made into a righty

I'm confused. If I give a left-handed compliment to a left-hander, does it become a real compliment?

I think the worst sport for lefties is probably Polo. You have to play it righty. And, no, I don't mean right-handed horses!

In cricket, there isn't the same platoon advantage as in baseball; the main advantage is having two batsmen of opposite handedness at the same time, because it messes up the bowler's rhythm.

being lefty must be in the DNA like blue eyes.

But it's not as simple as blue eyes, where two blue-eyed parents (e.g., my sister and her husband) will have all blue-eyed children (e.g., her 7 children). My wife and I are both left-handed and both of our boys are right-handed, as are all 4 of our parents (my wife has one left-handed brother and one right-handed sister; I have 3 right-handed siblings).

Also, following up on #26 and #27, I've heard that left-handers have a higher incidence of both genius and mental retardation.

...a given lefthander can be smarter, faster, more adroit, etc. than a given righthander.

Was the $6 Million Man a lefty?

I doubt I was made righty -- I have better dexterity in my right hand. My ex- is a lefty, but all my kids are right-handed. Don't know if the trait is passed down.

kiko,

i am not exactly a DNA expert and i guess some things that are inherited are dead simple and some things are more complicated.

but i sure do see left handedness running in both sides of my family. and my twins are lefty like me although one of them is a lot more ambidexterious. and i think a whole lot of people in our parents generations are leftys who were made to be rightys

but it will be interesting to see what science finds out about being lefty - or even how/if it is inherited in the dna

anecdotal evidence indicates that it does run in families, but no one has discovered a gene that causes left handedness.

yes, i do mean 'damage' in the sense you asked. but damage is a relative term. in this case maybe you could call it a developmental 'dink' that sets the body on a different course.

all human populations everywhere are roughly 90 percent righthanded. that tends to support the 'damage' theory, because there hasn't been an example of an isolated population with a preponderance of lefthandedness.

As far as I'm concerned, baseball is rigged for the strong and the fast.

phred

that is interesting. all populations of humans...

sounds like epilepsy. and they don't have the gene for that neither. only epilepsy is like 1%

alex,
you are probably a lefty who was made into a righty

People have said the same thing to me. I play sports with my left hand - I throw, bat, dribble, whatever, with my left hand, but I write, cut, use silverware, and other similar sorts of things with my right hand. For the most part, I can't change hands - its clear to me which I should use my left hand for, and which I should use my right hand for. I can't write at all with my left hand, and it doesn't feel right.

Its so natural (for all activities), I'd be surprised if it wasn't genetic.

dizzypaco,

this is what one of my twins told me - i use this hand for this and that hand for that. and my mother has told me the same thing. at least with my son i know it is natural because i didn't never tell him which hand to use for what. but of course my mother was taught to write righty

i was told that if a person is introduced to some kind of new activity that only needs one hand to do that they will use their real dominant hand. i was also told you can have a different dominant foot from hand. but i have never seen that one

bchick,

i do all the writing, throwing and batting stuff left handed, but i am a natural right foot kicker. grew up overseas and learned to play soccer, of course, and found i could not kick left naturally. i favored the right foot. but then i read somewhere that most lefties kick righty. very odd.

and here's another curveball. i use the mouse on the right hand, even when i do illustrations in drawing programs. go figure.

I use my left hand for everything. I kick with my right foot, but jump off my left.

cripes, someone should do a poll of lefties on this site.

so far, its

phredbird
bbchick
jesus melendez fanclub
cfij

hmmm.

If you hit someone with your non-dominant hand, is it still assault?

BTW, I'm never discussing violence of any type here again.

cripes, someone should do a poll of lefties on this site.

so far, its

phredbird
bbchick
jesus melendez fanclub
cfij

hmmm.

Hey, I said I was left-handed up in #38 (although I rambled a lot, so I could see missing it). But this is a thread about being lefthanded; it's not all that surprising that it's going to get a lot of participation from lefties.

I would love to watch a baseball game where the left-handed batters ran the bases counter-clockwise and the right-handed batters ran them clockwise.

Pandemonium!

I'm left-handed, if it adds to your data. But I trend toward the ambidextrous side of things; when I was little I'd use either hand for just about anything until I was basically forced to choose a hand. Most things I do lefty just because I'm more practiced at them, but I don't feel completely and utterly lost trying things right-handed. I can't write with my right hand, but I imagine if I were so inspired and worked at it I'd be able to.

52 posts and not a single mention of bowling, where (the way I heard it) lefties really do have a tangible advantage?

It's well-known (isn't it?) that lefties are overrepresented among mathematicians, architects, and other spatial professions. The urban myth in Cambridge is that 25% of MIT undergrads are lefties. My personal anecdotal experience also suggests that lefties as a group are way better bridge players than righties.

In cricket, there isn't the same platoon advantage as in baseball; the main advantage is having two batsmen of opposite handedness at the same time, because it messes up the bowler's rhythm.

Disagree - the lbw rule gives an advantage to a lefthanded batsman over a righthander, when facing a righthanded bowler doing a normal delivery. The bowler can come around the wicket but then his delivery and angles are different. Of course, you don't have to be lefthanded to bat lefthanded.

I am unsure whether there is an advantage for a left-handed bowler over a righthanded one.

Lefties are sinister.

I'm a lefty, too.

However, I bat right-handed. Who were the MLB players who did this?
Rickey Henderson and ?

Rickey Henderson and ?

Mark Carreon
Hal Chase
the slow Brian Hunter
Cleon Jones
Ryan Ludwick

I am also a lefty. I write exclusively with my left, but I could write badly with my right if pressed. I can throw with either hand, but prefer to do so with my right. Otherwise, I can use both hands reasonably equally, but usually use my left. And I kick right-footed.

Noah Lowry.

Who were the MLB players who did this?

I heard once that Brooks Robinson does everything lefthanded except bat and throw.

mike hampton

The best research that I've seen suggests that left-handedness is a result of birth stress; something that happens during the birthing process which causes the brain to develop in an unusual way. Thus, lefties, homosexuality, schizophrenia, retardation, and creative genius all tend to be somewhat correlated. A good predictor of left-handedness is whether there were complications during labor, and/or the age of the mother. The older she is when she gives birth, the more likely the child will be left-handed.

Anecdotally, this holds true for my family. My older sister had an ideal birth when my mother was 25 years old. She's a righty. I had a very complicated birth -- my mother nearly went to surgery, and I was born with the cord wrapped around my neck. I'm very much a lefty. My younger sister and brother were born when my mother was 30 and 31 respectively -- they're largely left-handed, although not quite to the same extent I am.

This is also a good indication of why it seems genetic. If there are certain genetic factors that make birth complications run in the family, that'll increase the chances of left-handedness. If there are certain (genetic or environmental) personality traits that lead to having children later in life, that'll increase the chances of left-handedness.

What's the story with lefties here? How many others had late or complicated births?

What's the story with lefties here? How many others had late or complicated births?

This doesn't seem to agree with my experience. From what I've been told, I was a pretty easy birth. On the other hand, my mom had miscarried her previous pregnancy and she was 33 when I was born. But my youngest brother, who's righthanded, was born 4 weeks premature when my mother was 37. As I said upthread, my wife and I are both lefties (as far as I know, she was the result of an uneventful pregnancy/labor; her mother was 24 at the time) and we have two right-handed sons, the first of whom was born via emergency C-section after 27 hours of labor (my wife was a month shy of 30 at the time) (the 2nd son was a scheduled c-section at the end of an uneventful pregnancy).

100% of surviving Beatles are lefties...

100% of surviving Beatles are lefties

Ha! Shorter life expectancy, my ass!

I am unsure whether there is an advantage for a left-handed bowler over a righthanded one.

There's nothing inherent like the platoon advantage or the step-closer-to-the-bag thing. It has purely to do with the rarity of lefties.

The first shot of the game on fresh oil will be identical for a righty and a lefty. However, every ball thrown pushes the oil around the lane a little bit. Over the course of the game, grooves of oil will develop. So every bowler needs to adjust not only to their own groove, but to the other bowlers' grooves. You need to change your shot over the course of three games.

If you're the only lefty bowling on a lane you have much less adjusting to do. Your shot will stay more consistent the whole series. And that's not even considering the fact that the lane probably wasn't oiled fresh when you started, so the righties have all of the grooves from the previous bowlers as well.

Left-handed, kick right, mouse right, brush right, chopsticks either.

The first shot of the game on fresh oil will be identical for a righty and a lefty. However, every ball thrown pushes the oil around the lane a little bit. Over the course of the game, grooves of oil will develop. So every bowler needs to adjust not only to their own groove, but to the other bowlers' grooves. You need to change your shot over the course of three games.

Um, different kind of bowler.

There's a huge controversy going on in cricket right now about whether batters can change from right-handed to left-handed in the middle of play (I'm not explaining this well - I'm sure our more cricket-savvy Primates could amplify):

Cricket switch hitting

Pieterson photo

Who were the MLB players who did this?

Sadutaru Oh, but not MLB

I'm left-handed (and left-footed), but my mom was 25 when I was born and it was a relatively gentle labor that lasted less than four hours without complications. My dad is a converted righty for sure.

The biggest lefty advantage in baseball is being able to hit mostly RHP.

I once took a look at what happens to the positional advantage if you limited all positions to RH throwers (so some LHB and switch-hitters remain). I don't remember the exact numbers (and it will depend on how you calculate replacement value) but I recall about half the positional advantage is due to that. Again, going from vague memory, SS and CF end up looking about the same and 3B almost catch up to 1B/LF/RF.

Of course if all positions were limited to RH throwers, good leftie hitters would just learn to throw rightie and/or someone like Derek Jeter probably would have been shifted to a corner (he'd hit better than your LF and you could put a defensive whiz at SS).

Still I found it interesting to think about how much of the offensive difference among positions, which we mainly attribute to the defensive spectrum, may be due to drawing from a larger talent pool and the lefty-hitting advantage.

Ted Williams used to say that being a lefty power hitter created no advantages in terms of getting to first base faster, in fact it was a disadvantage in his eyes. The advantage is for those lefties like Ichiro who don't take big swings and are half way out the box when they do swing.

Lefty power hitters are generally falling away from first base when they swing and have to come back toward first to start running.

They should do a series of timings on switch hitters if they really want to know the answer to all of this. FWIW Mickey Mantle used to be clocked at about 0.2 seconds faster going to first when he batted lefthanded. Small sample size, unreliable stopwatches, etc., but he had about as violent a torque in his swing as you can get, and was certainly far closer to Williams than Ichiro in terms of batting style.

Seems to me that the biggest variant in getting to first would be the direction you hit the ball, regardless of which side of the plate you were batting from, since no matter whether you're a lefty or a righty, if you hit a ball to left you still have to re-orient your body somewhat to run to first. And then that extra couple of steps that the righthanded batter has to run might well be the difference.

But whatever the case, I'd think it would be ridiculously easy to come up with a definitive answer by looking at the videos that we already have, without any need for even one more. Just take any 10 or 20 switch hitters, and time each of them on 10 or 20 balls that they hit to right/left/up the middle while batting left/righthanded, and you've got your answer.

I must say this thread so far illustrates why I love reading this site so much. The mix of the funny (left-handed compliment) and the astute (post 73) gives the site a pretty unique blend.

FYI, I've put up a poll on the front page.

While listing "bats right. throws left" players, I can't believe everyone's overlooked this guy. Well, perhaps "overlooked" isn't the best choice of words.

jim, you left out the switch hitter option.

Um, different kind of bowler.

Ah, in that post, yes, but I think that post 53 was referring to tenpin:

52 posts and not a single mention of bowling, where (the way I heard it) lefties really do have a tangible advantage?

I just assumed that the follow up was related.

There's a huge controversy going on in cricket right now about whether batters can change from right-handed to left-handed in the middle of play (I'm not explaining this well - I'm sure our more cricket-savvy Primates could amplify):

Cricket switch hitting

Pieterson photo

Basically, in cricket, the bowler must tell the umpire (who will inform the batsman) which hand he is going to bowl with, and which side of the wicket he is going to bowl from. This allows the batsman to position himself accordingly. Furthermore, there are different rules concerning the off and leg sides of the wicket (leg-side is where the batsman's legs are, off-side is the other side).

There is no such restriction on the batsman in the rules, but that is (arguably) because no-one has ever tried it before so no-one thought to make a rule against it.

A normal cricket shot looks something like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIpvkh_mD1w&feature=related

Now, for some time people have been playing the reverse sweep, a shot which has evolved over time. This is the traditional reverse sweep:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbUzs7kp93E

The batsman does not change which foot is forwards, but he brings his hands to the other side and hits the ball reverse-ways across his body. Here's Mike Gatting doing it in an actual game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Iz4_BuED4I

Gatting doesn't get it right, he top-edges the ball and is caught. These clips aren't very good but I can't find many examples of the traditional reverse sweep on youtube, because it's only really intended to go for one run. So when it goes right no-one puts it up on youtube, only when it goes wrong like for Gatting.

But lately some players have been playing the reverse sweep like this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk8jY5d9zaA

Tendulkar's front (left) foot stays in place, but he takes a long stride down the pitch with his
back (right) foot, meaning his right foot is now in front of his left foot. He now plays the reverse sweep. The advantage of this is it allows him to take a much stronger cut at the ball, instead of just paddling it along the ground. But you can see that he's somewhat reversed his stance, and is now - in a way - batting lefthanded. Tendulkar is certainly not the only one to play this kind of reverse sweep - Pietersen himself has played it a lot - but no-one really commented on it.

Now, Pietersen has taken it one step further. Here's what he did, and the commentary brings up some of the issues.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A-NZgd-goj4

The title of the video says "Swap hitting reverse sweep" but that's not a sweep. It's a drive. And what's more look what he does with his feet. He's not striding down the wicket with his back leg, he's shuffling around to reverse his stance. He also changes his grip on the bat.

The issues basically are: if the bowler has to tell the batsman which hand he is using and which side of the wicket he is bowling from, how is it fair that the batsman can switch stance without telling the bowler? What happens to the different rules concerning the off and leg sides of the wicket when the batsman changes stance? And what happens to wides (basically like a ball in baseball)?

As for why you would want to play a reverse sweep or in Pietersen's case a reverse drive, it's basically because of the way the ball is spinning. You would never play this shot against a fast bowler, you simply wouldn't have time to do all that messing around, and it wouldn't give you any advantage. Even against a spin bowler these shots are extremely risky, but the rise of first one-day cricket and now Twenty20 is encouraging batsmen to take more risks to score quick runs.

The powers that be have said that, in principle, Pietersen's shot is legal, but they're going to investigate the issues it raises.

Another left hander here. So is Dial, IIRC. AFAICT, I am neither homosexual, schizophrenic, or retarded (however, I have two brothers who have one of those traits. Maybe my Mom had trouble birthing us.) I do exhibit some creativity.

I was reading one of Michael Schell's books and he said that Arky Vaughan was one of the only left-handed hitting shrtstops who had much of a career. Is there an easy way to look this up? It doesn't sound like something that PI would be good for.

AlouGoodbye:

Thanks very much for that post - it really helped me understand the issue much better.

63 - CFiJ

both my parents are natural leftys

- all but 1 of my mothers siblings are lefty - and she is in the middle. i seriously doubt my grandmother had real too much trouble being pregnant or giving birth - back then if you had trouble, you or the baby or both ended up dead.

- my daddy's mama, best i know, gave birth to 17 children - not sure how many times she was pregnant or how many babies she had who died. but they were dirt poor and no medical care at all, so i guess there was no trouble with pregnancy or delivery. she made her kids do everything righty, so no idea how many were really leftys. my daddy thinks she was really a lefty too.

of all us kids, my mother didn't ever have trouble being pregnant or giving birth. the oldest is a lefty, the next 2 are rightys, the last 2 are leftys.

- with me, i had the twins when i was 21 - i had a terrible pregnancy, but not much trouble giving birth. i mean, it wasn't what you call "fun" but the doctor was hoping and praying even a little something would be wrong so he could cut on me, but he was out of luck. they were born a month early, but were just fine when they were born. one is a real lefty with everything, like me and the other is a lot more ambidexterious.
- my husband is definitely a righty, and i know that 2 kids is small sample size... (da bull is adopted and his mother is a righty - god only knows about his sperm donor)

I was reading one of Michael Schell's books and he said that Arky Vaughan was one of the only left-handed hitting shrtstops who had much of a career.

I don't know how "much of a career" might be defined, but Vaughan was definitely the best of a small group. Others of note would be Dick McAuliffe, Johnny Pesky, and Cecil Travis.

GGC

dial is absolutely, positively lefty (and i think red is too)

if i remember RIGHTly (hahaha) backlasher, andy and kevin are rightys

Here's my uninteresting handedness profile:

I was mostly ambidextrous as a young child, but eventually favored right-handedness.
I bat left-handed, though I used to bat right-handed.
I jump left-footed.
I have a hard time balancing on a bike holding the handlebars with only my right hand, but am fine with my left.
Everything else I do right-handed, but I am far more proficient left-handed at almost anything than most right-handers.

As far as I know, nobody in my (very small) family is left-handed, and my mom gave birth to me when she was 40. I'm not convinced that either of those is meaningful.

i forgot -

leftys who bat right

- craig biggio, jason lane

leftys who throw righty - mike lamb

"Thus, lefties, homosexuality, schizophrenia, retardation, and creative genius all tend to be somewhat correlated. A good predictor of left-handedness is whether there were complications during labor, and/or the age of the mother. The older she is when she gives birth, the more likely the child will be left-handed.

Anecdotally, this holds true for my family. My older sister had an ideal birth when my mother was 25 years old. She's a righty. I had a very complicated birth -- my mother nearly went to surgery, and I was born with the cord wrapped around my neck. I'm very much a lefty."

Are you also homosexual, schizophrenic, retarded, or unusually creative?

I don't know how "much of a career" might be defined, but Vaughan was definitely the best of a small group. Others of note would be Dick McAuliffe, Johnny Pesky, and Cecil Travis.

I think that he was using 4000 at bats as his cutoff, so I guess he was looking at guys with long careers. I think that he would've counted McAuliffe as a utility guy for his purposes.

What's the story with lefties here? How many others had late or complicated births?

I am left-handed, and I was born when my mother was 31. I was also born with the cord wrapped around my neck. I don't consider myself homosexual, schizophrenic, retarded, or unusually creative. I have always had an interest in things mathematical, for whatever it is worth.

My wife is also left-handed. Here mother was also in her early thirties, but I don't believe the birth was particularly difficult. My wife is not homosexual, schizophrenic, or retarded. But she writes and paints.

I don't know how "much of a career" might be defined, but Vaughan was definitely the best of a small group. Others of note would be Dick McAuliffe, Johnny Pesky, and Cecil Travis.

Joe Sewell.

You can definitely use PI for that.

there hasn't been an example of an isolated population with a preponderance of lefthandedness.

Not sure if this is one of those facts that have been debunked to far less notice than the original report, but the Yanomamo tribe in the Amazon region supposedly has a lefthanded population of about 23%, much higher than the standard 10%. The purported reason is the violent nature of the local culture, featuring lots of hand to hand combat. Southpaws have an advantage in this regard, and so are more likely to have children, etc., etc.

Works the same in baseball, without the deaths.

leftys who bat right

- craig biggio

I believe the Texas idiom is "say what?"

well, teddy, as i mentioned earlier there's no evidence that handedness is genetic. so maybe some of the yanomamo righties teach themselves lefthanded fighting techniques if they aren't natural lefties.

my mom had me when she was 20. but i seem to remember her saying once that she smoked 'a little' when she was pregnant (i know -- but it was in the fifties and she was really young and didn't know better). i'm well below average height in a family of 3 boys the other 2 who've grown to slightly below avg. height. they are righties.

i am an art director, illustrator, painter, type designer, writer.

ACE1242 Posted: July 09, 2008 at 08:27 PM (#2851260)

leftys who bat right

- craig biggio

I believe the Texas idiom is "say what?"

- well, he writes with his left hand and uses a fork with his left hand. i was really shocked one day when i saw him signing autographs

i don't know why he bats righty - i would guess that he was just taught that way. and i would guess that he was a very small kid - he's not exactly a big man - i'd guess he's really about 5-9 1/2 (he's shorter than my mother who is 5-10 1/2 or so) and IF he was gonna play ball, he'd have to be an IF and they all throw righty (except 1B). and he started out as a catcher and they are ALL righty throwers

R/R here. My circle of junior high/HS friends, who gathered to play some sport (eventually it was mostly basketball) were entirely R/R. So when we played baseball with shorthanded teams, we always closed right field - that was the same for everyone. But somehow the rules for backyard whiffleball required that everyone bat lefty. Because of basketball, I did force myself to do some things with either hand, although I'll admit that main purpose of my left-handed hook shot was to cause whoever was guarding me to double over with laughter.