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Pappas Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Righties
by Dave
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Pappas, don't let your babies grow up to be righties, at least not at the plate. There's a decided advantage to batting from the left side, at least in girls fastpitch softball there is. There's nothing about ordinary right-handedness per se which requires kids to hit from the right side. If you're about to raise yourself a softballer, I advise you to start out by teaching her to hit lefty. It is not only easier to raise a kid to bat lefty, doing so will provide her with almost too many advantages to list.
Before we examine many of the issues involved in being a left-handed hitter, let's talk about "handedness" generally. Lots of scientific studies have examined "handedness" in humans and non-humans in an effort to explain it and determine its roots. To date, nobody has succeeded in adequately doing either.
There are many theories but no established fact which gives us the reason for one's "handedness" or which adequately describes physiological causes and related characteristics of those who are either right- or left-handed. Let's just skip right over ambidexterity (the quality of being equally good with both hands, or at least, close to it). That really confuses the issue! As an aside, ambidextrous lierally means having two right hands!
According to one article in Scientific American I found, "most humans (say 70 percent to 95 percent) are right-handed, a minority (say 5 percent to 30 percent) are left-handed, and an indeterminate number of people are probably best described as ambidextrous." I don't think there is any question that right-handedness is dominant in all human societies.
To my knowledge, no ethnicity, society, tribe, or even family is predominantly left-handed. Left-handedness can run in families. The Brit royals have a lot of lefties in their line. But having a lot of lefties does not mean everyone or even a majority of individuals in the family are left handed. Scientists have identified a gene which is correlated to an increased chance of being left-handed. But that doesn't mean the presence of the gene causes a person to be a lefty or that a person who has the gene is always a lefty. There is just a tendency for the gene and left-handedness to be present in the same individuals.
For the trivia buffs out there, this gene also has a correlation to the presence of certain mental illnesses. I suppose the folklore which claims lefty baseball pitchers are usually more colorful than righties might be explained by this. I'm just kidding. I don't believe that folklore, or do I?
Humans do not have any subgroup which is predominantly left-handed but the same tendency is not necessarily present in other species. Most species do not display a "handedness" because they don't use their "hands" the way humans do. Of those which do, there doesn't seem to be a trend similar to that found in humans. Polar bears tend to be left-handed. Some lobsters are left-handed and some are right - this being determined by the larger claw which is used in combat. One web site claims "in zoo research, apelike animals, like lemurs and galagos, are primarily left-handed." Put that in your whatever and do whatever!
Scientists have tried to explain causes of left-handedness by looking at evolutionary theory. The leading left-handed theory within this category is called the "warrior and his shield" and it tries to explain the predominance of right handedness by claiming that a warrior holding his shield in his left hand with spear in his right, has an advantage because the heart is on the left side of the chest. So the warrior holding his shield with the left hand is better able to protect his heart from becoming impaled on the opponent's spear than his lefty counterpart! Thus he lives to pass on his genes while the left-handed warrior presumably dies childless.
This like many other disproven theories sounds good on its surface. We readily believe it when we hear it. But the heart isn't that far from center, humans haven't used shields in combat for a few years, it doesn't adequately account for the tendency of males to have a higher probability of being left-handed than females, and cave paintings (made before shields and spears) also show a predominance of right-handedness.
But enough of the information I gleaned at the local leftorium reading room. Let's get back to the game.
There is a decided advantage to being a left-handed batter. For one thing, lefties stand a lot closer to first base than righties - easily a full stride, perhaps more. From what I can find, a female stride length is about 6 feet at full speed. Obviously, the first stride one takes is a short one to accelerate. Typically a right-handed batter will reach the area right in front of homeplate with her first step. At that point, she hasn't even yet reached the lefty starting line. If an average stride is about 6 feet at full speed, that means there are something like 8-12 steps to get to first, 60 feet from home. These steps are taken over a period of something like 2 - 4 seconds, depending on the age group and level of play. So a lefty with one less step to take will generally get to the bag at least 10% faster, .2 - .4 seconds before the righty. That's significant, far more significant than the advantage in baseball which is, however, frequently discussed as being significant.
Additionally, left handers need to sacrifice bunt less! That's not precisely true but my point is, when you're standing in the left-handed batter's box, you partially obscure the catcher's view of the runner on first making it easier for her to steal. If she steals successfully, you're not going to have to sacrifice her over!
Finally, you cannot be a complete offensive threat from the right side the way you can from the left. Righties can do almost anything but they cannot totally mess with the defense the way a lefty can. The thing about a girl standing in the left box is the defense is almost always going to assume she slaps. The infield cannot play back as deeply as they would have for a righty, unless of course, they expected the righty to drag or sacrifice. This makes things very interesting to say the least.
We used to be involved with a team on which two girls were fairly well practiced slappers/draggers from the left side. They were our first two batters. The first girl would try to get on via a slap or drag bunt, often succeeeding. The second girl would also stand in lefty and do something, sacrifice, drag, slap to move the runner to second. Then our third batter, a natural left-handed power hitting kid, would come up with one or more runners on and usually somebody in scoring position. She wasn't a slapper, however. But often defenses would fail to make the adjustment. Having just been burned by slaps or bunts two times previously, they generally were not back at full distance when the next lefty stood in. This made it easier for her to smack balls through infield holes or hit balls over outfielders' heads.
To sum up to this point, righties are predominant in human populations. Causes aren't clear. Being a left-handed hitter in softball has decided advantages both because first is closer and because it can make the defense play you differently.
Many articles out there claim there is another advantage to being left handed in sports. This you can think of as the experience or practice theory. Basically, most players are right handed. That means most pitchers and batters are right-handed. Batters are far more accustomed to seeing right handed pitchers so they deal with them more easily. A left handed pitcher is, therefore, harder to deal with. And, of course, a left-handed batter should be more difficult to pitch to.
I don't think this holds all that much water, at least not in fastpitch softball. You can disagree with me, if you like. I don't mind. I have seen kids have trouble hitting against lefty pitchers but that trouble evaporates pretty quickly after they have seen one. And while I have seen some pitchers get confounded by having to try to hit corners against a lefty, I haven't seen a lot of trouble and that also evaporates with a minimal amount of experience.
The first time my older daughter faced a good lefty pitcher, she struggled. The second time she saw her, she drilled the ball like it was batting practice. She said, after the first game, "Dad, I've never faced a lefty before." After the second game, she said, "hitting lefties is no big deal." We don't see that many lefties over the course of a season. She has sometimes struggled in her first at-bat against one. But invariably, after that, she doesn't have any trouble picking up the ball.
In baseball, particularly high level baseball, I think this theory or observation may hold some truth though we do see a higher percentage of lefty pitchers in baseball than we see left-handers in the general population. If you examine MLB platoon situations, usually we find that righty batters can deal with righty pitchers fairly well. Lefty batters can too. Many, though not all, platoons involve lefty hitters who struggle against lefty pitchers. There are reasons for this which are somewhat complicated. I could skip over this but I think I'll delve into it a bit just to explain why this issue isn't as evident in softball.
Some say that the reason a baseball batter has trouble with a same-handed pitcher (righty vs. righty / lefty vs. lefty) has to do with curveballs. In baseball, a curveball thrown by a righty to a righty moves away from the hitter. The same is true of a lefty curveball thrown to a lefty batter. Conversely, a lefty curveball thrown to a righty batter moves towards him as does a righty curveball to a lefty batter. Curveballs are a prevalent pitch in baseball. Screwballs (with reverse motion to the curveball) do the opposite but are much more prevalent in fastpitch softball than they are in baseball. There aren't many screwballs thrown in baseball. The only pitch which tends to move in the opposite direction from a curveball is a tailing fastball, usually a two seamer, and sometimes a splitty or forkball.
Yet I don't think the sideways movement of the curveball is the only thing at work here. For one thing, some curveballs do actually curve - move laterally - but many are really a different sort of sinker. Baseball fanatics are fond of describing a "12 to 6" curveball or referring to its movement as "dropping off the table." The reason for this is the downward movement on a baseball curveball is the more important plane. The slider (a less prevalent pitch) often, though not always, moves sideways. But a slider is difficult to throw and not all that many pitchers, even at the major league level, use it effectively.
I watched a baseball game last night in which a very famous right-handed batter struggled mightily against a curve-throwing left-handed pitcher. It did not matter to this batter that the ball was moving towards him, at least on one plane. He looked foolish and struck out. So what, if any, advantage do same-handedness baseball pitchers really have?
Pundits often say that inn baseball, with its overhand pitching motion, the advantage of a same-handed pitcher has to do with "hiding the ball." The way the general movement of a baseball pitcher functions provides an opportunity for the pitcher to keep the ball out of the hitter's view until the last moment - as the ball is released. But a left handed pitcher can hide the ball more easily and for a fraction of a second longer against a left handed hitter as a righty can do against a righty batter. I don't actually get this since a right handed hitter should see the ball a fraction of a second sooner against a right handed pitcher since his vision isn't obcured by the pitcher's head as much as a lefty's vision should be.
But let's say this is true for the sake of argument. Couple this with the lower frequency of experiences against left-handed pitchers for all batters and it's easy to see why all baseball batters struggle with lefties and lefty batters really struggle.
I realize I've confused the issue for you as well as myself. But my point here is the same dynamic at work in baseball pitching (whatever it is) cannot be quite as evident in fastpitch. That's because the release point in fastpitch is next to the leg. The opportunity to "hide the ball," if that's what's at work, is available but to a much lesser extent than it is in baseball. Lefty softball hitters can struggle against lefty pitchers but I believe this is not as drastic a struggle and more easily overcome.
Pitchers tend to have an easier time dealing with opposite-side hitters in softball than the pitchers in baseball do. That's partly because they can move the pitch away and also because the disadvantages to the batter of facing a same side pitcher (advantages of facing an opposite side pitcher) are not as great.
While the screwball is more prevalent in windmill pitching, it tends to move less laterally than the curveball. A righty windmill pitcher facing a lefty batter is more likely to have a pitch which moves away from the hitter in her arsenal than her baseball counterpart.
Also, the release point in baseball vs. softball has a completely different visual field dynamic. If you think of the field of vision like a dart board, the small space in which release takes place is sort of two dimensional. There are horizontal and vertical planes. The eyes can focus on something near or far in the field of vision nearest the release point but they can't simultaneously focus on both. And any movement within the target area is confusing to the hitter's brain.
In a two dimensional sense, looking out at the pitcher, the baseball pitcher is going to release the ball at a point near where his head just was. He winds up, strides down the vertical space and the balls comes out of a place in which there is movement - his head dropping down as he strides. Obviously, nobody throws directly overhead but within that approximate space in one moment there's the guy's head, then nothing but background, then the ball being released. The background is an important aspect. That's why many stadiums have been forced to remove seats in the centerfield bleachers and replace them with a monotone background, usually black. It should be noted that baseball pitchers work on varying their release points on pitches for precisely the reason of taking advantage of the confusion of movement which comes in the batter's two dimensional visual field.
In softball, pitchers generally release the ball at a point on their leg near their knee. Where they actually release the ball depends, obviously, on how long their arms are relative to the rest of their bodies. But every pitcher releases the ball at or near the same point on her own body on every pitch. There is some variability depending on the pitch but this isn't necessarily a good or desirable thing for the pitcher. Softball pitchers do not work hard to release the ball at different places because this provides visual clues to batters about what sort of pitch is coming. Rather, they work for sameness of release point in order to confuse the batter.
Also, there is little real movement on the two dimensional plain when a windmill pitcher is throwing. The ball comes out of someplace near her thigh or knee. That part of her body is in motion but it's motion isn't up, down or sideways - it isn't in the two dimensional space. The movement of a windmill pitcher's leg is towards the batter. Her legs do not drop out of the picture frame and get replaced by the ball being released. Rather, the pitcher's legs form a solid color, relatively stationery background against which the ball can more easily be seen.
So it doesn't matter quite as much that you are facing a lefty or righty. The windmiller can't hide the ball the way a baseball pitcher can. There isn't as much visual confusion in the target (two dimensional) space in which release will take place. The advantages on an opposite side hitter are not as great in softball as they are in baseball from a purely hitter vs. pitcher point of view.
The differences I have just gone over at length explain why I am not advocating that fathers and mothers try to make theuir kids into switch-hitters, those who hit equally well from each side. In baseball, it is extremely desirable to learn to hit from both sides since there are disadvantages to a lefty facing a lefty pitcher. That is really why I wasted so much time and space talking about lefties hitting righties and righties hitting lefties.
My focus is on convincing you to teach your darling daughters to hit from the left side period. The thrust of my argument is there are many reasons for it and not very many against. I've explained several reasons in favor and disposed of a few against, as well as against being a switch hitter. Now let's look at what's involved in learning to hit from the left.
The first element I would like to address is the issue of a batter's "natural side." I do not believe anyone really has a natural side per se. What I mean is I do not think there is anything about hitting from the "right side" which necessarily has anything to do with right-handedness. I do not fully believe that what we refer to as a "right-handed stance" is in fact right-handed. I believe it is just the way which we have become accustomed to seeing as and calling right handed.
The only element to swinging a bat which might lend itself to be called right-handed has to do with using the back arm as the generator of power. If your right arm is the stronger one, you use it as the main source of power, and that source of power is critical to hitting, then I suppose so-called right handed hitters are doing things properly if they are truly right arm dominant. Yet, swing mechanics are not so simple. One arm is not necessarily do important to one's power. In fact, we have a termn which describes the mechanical flaw caused when a right hander tries to generate all hitting power with their right arm. That is "top hand dominance." And it is to be avoided.
Further to the point, there are a slew of right hand dominant (right hand throwing) softball and baseball players who always hit from the left side. Many of these left handed hitters who throw righty are power and/or line-drive hitters. For example, in baseball we have Joe Morgan and on Team USA Softball, we have Jessica Mendoza as two examples of right-hand dominant, lefty hitters who drive the ball. I just named two, one from each sport. But if I had all day, I could go on with this for a very long time. And I think my point is made.
The only physical characteristic which might lend itself to indicating some sort of "natural side" from which to hit would be present if one eye were to be dominant over the other. As it happens, one of the few characteristics besides "handedness" in which humans have a "dominant side" is vision. That is, humans each typically have a dominant eye. This is known as "ocular dominance." So this could be a consideration.
Ocular dominance is not actually like handedness in which we tend to do everything important with our one dominant side. Rather, in ocular dominance, we tend to do different things using different eyes. One side of our brain is used to see the entire visual image and the other for details. The eye which feeds into the side of the brain which does each function is, obviously, used for that function. This would be important for deciding which side to hit from if one side was more well suited to lead the way, or follow, when hitting. That would tell us righty dominant kids are better off hitting from the right side and lefties from the left. But the correlation between handedness and which eye is dominant is very weak. Left-handed people and right-handed people alike tend to use the same side of their brain for the various functions. That is, lefties and righties generally have the same dominant eye - not reversed the way they are with their hands.
So, there doesn;t seem to be anything per se which requires a right handed thrower to bat from the right or a left handed thrower to bat lefty. It isn't about power. There are too many examples to counter that point. Hitting is about learned mechanics, not about some sort of "natural side." And while vision may play into it, there are too many refutations to claim one side is necessarily more natural than others.
Now let's move on to a brief discussion about teaching a very young kid to hit lefty. One of the most difficult parts about teaching a kid to hit a ball with a stick, whether the objects involved pertain to tennis, softball, golf, etc., is we can't do and look at the same time. If I had a dollar for every time I stood in back of a kid and tried to mimick her movements, then tried to show her a mirror image! On the other hand, if you are a righty hitter facing and teaching a lefty hitter, things become quite a bit easier. You can talk, watch and demonstrate all at the same time. It is easy to be a mirror image for a kid while giving hitting lessons when the two of you hit from the opposite side. So, all I'm going to say about this is it should be easy for any righty to teach a kid to hit lefty.
Finally, I'm going to anticipate some feedback and questions which I'm going to get regarding this article. To answer your question, no, I haven't taught my daughters or any player, for that matter, to hit lefty. I'm too lazy for that. My kids have been hitting right handed for too long. That alone has sometimes been a struggle. And I don't have the patience (nor do they) to start over from square one. They're also not such fast runners that I think it would make a difference. Really, they're about average, not burners. They have only just learned a tiny bit about slapping and I don't think we'll take it any further since they'll never be fast enough to make that a habit. The real answer is the one I gave first which is I'm too lazy. I guess what I'm saying is, if I had it to do over again, I would teach my daughters to hit from the left side.
I don't think I got completely into this earlier on but the advantages to being a genuine lefty hitter are truly amazing. I would add to what has preceded this by saying, you should not only raise a lefty hitter but you should be sure to teach her skills such as slapping, bunting, dragging, etc. What we're after in all this is the "perfect" offensive softball weapon. Don't see what I mean? Watch some of the kids on Team USA via ESPN2. Those are, I think, on Wednesday nights for the next several weeks. There are players on that team who can slap for an infield hit, power slap the ball over the fence, over infielders' and/or outfielders' heads pretty much at will, drill one down either sideline, or just power the ball over the fence or into the gaps, all while having a one step advantage to their right handed counterparts. How do you defense against those capabilities? Intentional walk!?!
Even just in age group ball, the opportunities which are available to a kid who can hit from the left side including bunt and maybe even slap just a little are extraordinary. Ignore this post at your own peril.Labels: batting
 
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