Play ball! (It's easier if you're a leftie)

Like baseball? Got a left-handed kid? Then brush up on those lose-all-sense-of-proportion-about-athletics parenting skills, because the fates have dealt you a hand not to be ignored.

Baseball, it turns out, is ideal for lefties, says David Peters, an engineering professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

Among the reasons:

* Left-handed batters have a clearer view of balls coming from a right-handed pitcher.

* When hitting the ball, left-handed batters are taken toward first base, not toward third, as with right-handed batters. That means they can get to first more quickly and efficiently.

* Left-handed pitchers can more easily see runners at first base than can right-handed pitchers, who are bedeviled by inefficiency in this regard.

America's favorite pastime offers advantages to lefties in other ways too, which Peters has indeed analyzed. But perhaps the proof is in the numbers. "Ninety percent of the human population is right-handed," he says in the news release, "but in baseball 24% of the players, both pitchers, and hitters, are left-handed." 

And if this whets your appetite for research as it relates to left-handedness, proceed to the homepage of the Handedness Research Institute. (If you're right-handed, be prepared to feel guilty for never giving the standard school desk a second thought. If you're left-handed, vindication of some small sort is yours.)

Then check out this list of lefties throughout history, including a whole passel of them in sports. (You can also read the list in pig Latin, which is cool. Unnecessary, but cool.) There's Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Shoeless Joe Jackson, Sandy Koufax, Barry Bonds, Randy Johnson ...

-- Tami Dennis

Photo: Dodger left-hander Sandy Koufax during his perfect game against the Chicago Cubs on Sept. 9, 1965.

Credit: Associated Press

Comments

[gman]

Barry Bonds is right-handed. (throws from the right-side). He just bats from the left side of the plate.

[Tami Dennis]

Actually, MLB thinks he throws left-handed too. For official stats and info: http://barrybonds.mlb.com/team/player.jsp?player_id=111188

[Mason Swarthout]

Good interview Mr. Peters, I agree it is easier for lefty pitchers in baseball but being a right hander, I wouldn't count them out.