Southpaw’s Revenge

Watching the Twins' Justin Morneau lead off the winning rally in the 15th inning of Tuesday night's All-Star game with a single to shallow center, there was no reason to be surprised that he throws righty but bats lefty. Although only one in 10 civilians are left-handed, one quarter of Major League Baseball players are southpaws. That's no accident, says Washington University aerospace engineer David Peters, who has used math and physics skills to confirm that lefties have a considerable advantage on the diamond. Of the 40 players in Tuesday's All-Star game, 18 are either left-handed batters or switch-hitters. And it's not just the MLB where lefties excel, says Peters. Among the thousands of young players populating the nation's baseball and softball fields for summer tournaments, chances are the left-handers are getting on base more frequently and pitching better than their righty counterparts. NEWSWEEK's Andrew Bast spoke with Peters about the mechanics of national pastime. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: You argue that left-handers have a distinct advantage in baseball. Why?
David Peters: Twenty-five percent of players are left-handed, where in real life only 10 percent [of people] are left-handed, so that's proof that they are two-and-a-half-times better. There are several reasons why. One reason is that the left-handed batter is closer to first base, so he's got a couple steps advantage trying to beat out a grounder. Over the course of a year, he's going to beat out a few more. Also, as he swings, his momentum is turning him toward first base. But that is not the biggest advantage. The biggest has to do with the angle of the ball. Three quarters of pitchers are right-handed. A right-handed batter has to look over his left shoulder and the ball is coming at quite an angle. The offset of your eyes gives you depth perception. So when you're looking over your shoulder, you have lost the distance between your two eyes quite a bit, so you have lost that 10th of a second to see the ball. That's why batters switch hit.

Is the inverse also true?
A left-handed hitter facing a left-handed batter means double trouble. First, it's coming over his shoulder, but second, he hasn't seen that many left-handed pitchers, because he's mostly learned from right-handed pitchers.

And the stadiums, too?
Most ballparks were built thinking of right-handed batters. The left field was usually further away than right because of the power of right-handed batters. So when a lefty comes to the plate, he's got that short right field. I used to watch Stan Musial when I was a kid in the old Sportsman's Park where they had a very short left-field pavilion. Or [the] Polo Grounds in New York was the same. All of those old parks definitely had a shorter right-field fence. And, of course, the House that Ruth Built, Yankee Stadium, is a prime example.

Do coaches make calculated judgments accordingly?
Yes, they have all kinds of statistics how every batter hits against both righty and lefties. For instance, the Cardinals have Chris Duncan who probably doesn't start if there is a left-handed pitcher. That is why switch-hitters change when they do. Now some batters do better with their stance, but most lefties have a big advantage.

A friend of mine says that his mother lied to him all his life, telling him he was really a lefty, only to recently discover that he's right-handed. If we want our kids to make the big leagues, maybe we ought to do the same?
No, teach them to switch hit. That is what Mickey Mantle's dad did. From day one when Mantle was 5 years old, he learned from both sides. Pete Rose was a similar kind of story. That gives you the advantage. I was actually left-handed, and my parents and schoolteachers actually made me switch. They weren't thinking about baseball as much as they were thinking about normalcy. I stutter to this day because of it. The desks at school, scissors, the Palmer Method of penmanship, none of them worked for a lefty. Now, throwing in baseball is not as critical, though there has hardly ever been a left-handed catcher, because most batters are right-handed so if you want to throw out someone stealing second, the batter is in the way. Babe Ruth wanted to be a catcher, but there were no mitts for lefties. So they made him a pitcher instead.

Would all the same lefty rules apply to softball, also?
In fast-pitch, it's the very same thing. In fact, it's a bit shorter to first base, so that extra head start is even more important. Also, the pitcher is so much closer in softball, the reaction time is cut down even further.