Quote:
Originally Posted by BoomerSoonerAMH
I’d argue that the “motion is awkward” has quite a bit to do with it. My son is left handed and started noticing the extra time it took him to make throws from shortstop starting in 7th grade. It was the point at which they started playing on a 90’ diamond. His arm strength covered the footwork issues on smaller diamonds and he was fine on hard hit balls, but anything he had to charge was tricky for him.
Concerning 1B, the only significant advantage a left has over a righty at first is glove side is closer to a runner on pickoff throws. Regarding throws from first, the only throw back to the other side of the diamond is on a throw to 2nd which isn’t that awkward for a RH 1B.
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Sure, the motion is awkward, I can't dispute that. But if it was *just* that the motion was awkward or even if that was primarily the case, you'd still see kids with superior talent rising above that, the same way you see pitchers with weird pitching motions making it all the way to the big leagues. Hell, we've had a one-handed pitcher in the major leagues in the past, and even a one-armed outfielder during World War 2 (he was a horrible player, but still). At the end of the day, cream rises to the top... that is, unless said cream has already been moved somewhere where it has a far greater chance of rising. And frankly, there's also the fact that the motion is considered awkward for left-handers because third base has been created with right-handers in mind for the past 100+ years. If there wasn't this issue - where pretty much every left-hander with a plus arm gets asked to pitch by the time they play high school ball, where, say, 30% of all people were naturally left-handed (I feel like you'd see like 50% LHPs in that universe, but even so, pulling 50% out of 30% of the population is a way better ratio than pulling 30% out of 5%), you'd have a long legacy of people figuring out efficient ways to throw the ball from third to first or from short to first left-handed.
At first, one of the big factors that people bring up at third is that a player's glove hand is on the infield side, which means that they don't have to reach across their body for hard hit groundballs in the hole. Right handed throwing first basemen have their gloves hugging the line. I think this may primarily be seen as not a big thing because most 1B aren't considered fielders secondarily if at all, but if 1B was a premium fielding position that would certainly be considered a factor.