Southpaw’s Revenge

This year's Wimbledon winner is Rafael Nadal—a right-hander who plays tennis left-handed. Does the left-hand advantage carry into other sports?
There is always the advantage that the other player hasn't seen as many lefties. It's the same in boxing. A left-handed boxer circles a different way. Even in bowling, left-handers have an advantage because the lanes wear from so many right-handed bowlers and the lefty doesn't get caught in that worn groove. One game that doesn't work for left-handers though is jai alai.

You're an aerospace engineer. Should major-league front offices start talking more to scientists?
There's a lot of things they should talk about. Now we have trouble with the maple bats, and there's a question whether we ought to use aluminum. Scientists could help a lot there. We had the controversy with the ball, how it was getting more lively with all the home runs. Already a lot of teams have mathematicians and computers in their dugouts figuring probabilities. So there is a lot of place for science in the game of baseball. Ted Williams was really the first to think of hitting as a science. He discovered it was bat speed, not bat weight that was so important. After him, people went to lighter bats. Ruth used some huge 36-ounce bat, but Williams discovered, no, it's actually the speed.

Though you can probably explain why a curveball actually works.
It's Bernoulli's principle. Take an overhead curve heading for home plate, for example. It's got topspin. From the top of the ball, the stitching and the leather tends to slow down the air. Whereas the bottom of the ball is spinning back toward the pitcher and is actually pulling the air and speeding it up. It's how an airplane wing works. You get more force on the top of the ball than on the bottom and that pushes it down.

Today you have curveballs, sliders and change-ups. Are there any pitches still to be developed?
I think there are. The Japanese have been working on different kinds of spins that nobody has ever done before. There's not a ball now that really spins with its axis from the pitcher to the catcher on a horizontal plane. People have been trying to see what that would do. Of course, the knuckleball doesn't spin at all, so the air can't decide which side it wants to go on and you don't know which way it is going to go. You know, back when the curveball was first invented, the president of Harvard declared that his baseball team would not throw it because it was unsportsmanlike.

One of my colleagues broke his hand this summer sliding into first. Do you have a theory that might make him feel better?
The only time you should slide into first base is if the first baseman is getting pulled off the bag by a wide throw so he has to tag you. In that case it might get you under the tag. But otherwise you're faster overrunning it. Now there are people who swear by diving. Their argument is that when you dive and your feet leave the ground you keep the same speed but get your hands out in front of you. Only, there's air friction. Though, I think if diving was in fact better, people would probably do it more.

The Cardinals are your team. How do they look for the second half of the season?
Everybody else is making moves—Milwaukee, Chicago. And we're just sitting here. It's going to be tough to catch the Cubs, but we might get a wildcard berth. You never know. We've got a bunch of young guys. We have almost the best starting pitching, but our bullpen has been horrible.

Maybe you need some left-handed relievers.
That's exactly what we need.

© 2008