Quote:
Originally Posted by wilky61
This is just a random baseball question out of leftfield... but I started thinking about a 3B charging a bunt and barehanding it to make the throw to first. I was thinking about that motion, picturing it in my head and envisioning the difficulty of the throw across my body when it occurred to me that I would never be able to play 3B because I throw lefthanded.
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In general, if you're left-handed, you are relegated to the following positions:
-first base
-pitcher
-outfield
As a fellow lefty, I became an outfielder at an early age, because first base seemed boring to me. In Little League (when it didn't really matter) I played a little bit of shortstop, but by my teens I was in the outfield for good. I hated pitching.
Some people might take it even further, and say that lefties should not play right field, because on balls hit down the line, it's crucial for a right handed player to be able to lean down and scoop the ball to his left, and then come up firing right away, if a runner is trying to score. For a lefty, they'd have to either back hand it (tricky), or somehow run past it it so they can scoop it the normal way.
Left handed catchers don't really exist, because right handed batters have always been more common (or at least, I imagine they still are), so that creates a bit of a problem with throwing out people trying to steal. Sure, there's always the batter interference rule, but a left handed catcher will still generally have to sidestep to the right before throwing to second, and take a huge sidestep to the left to try to throw someone out at third. Also, when blocking the plate on a runner trying to score, it's much easier for a right handed catcher to catch a ball with their left hand and swipe to the left (since the runner coming from third is to their left) than for a lefty catcher to try to swing their right hand across their body for a tag.
All the infield positions (other than first base) are difficult for the reason you mentioned. Second base is obviously the most difficult, due to the amount of turning it'd require, to make a throw to first. For a second baseman, any ball hit to their right is easy to glove as a lefty, but difficult to throw (since you'd have to turn a lot). Any ball hit to their left is difficult to glove (they'd have to backhand it), but the throw is somewhat easier after that. For a righty, the easier plays to glove are also the easier ones to throw (balls hit to their left), and the harder ones to glove are the harder ones to throw (balls hit to their right), so it works out well for them that the two harder things to do go together, instead of always having something hard about every play.
At first base it's kind of a toss-up, but I think lefty first basemen are maybe a little bit better, because when holding a runner on they can make a quicker tag on pickoffs.
One other idea (which I imagine is somewhat true, but doesn't account for everything) is that if you're a lefty, at some point a manager is going to try to get you to be a pitcher (which is why you don't see them playing many other positions).
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