How come there aren't any left-handed throwing catchers in baseball?

[The Giant]

I've always wondered about this.

I just had the Little League World Series on (had huge money on those little brats), and they had a lefty behind the plate.

How come there aren't ever any in the majors?

[Brock Landers]

Mike Squires did this for the white sox a long time ago. Looks weird as hell

[PickWinnerAllDay]

majority batters are right handed.

[Footballtime]

Main reason is because there is 30 better right handed catchers in MLB...........Same applies for SS, 3rd and 2nd...........

[benjy]

If you have a catcher's arm and happen to be left handed you are no longer a catcher, you are a pitcher.

[Smoke]

not sure giant which reminds me of a story when i played little league baseball we had a left handed throwing catcher. Guys would laugh at him and throw things at him. Well one day he went nuts and kicked one of the kids in the balls. The kid that got kicked in the balls was extremely upset and couldn't breath. Well next day that same guy kicks the left handed throwing catcher in the balls. end of story

[The Giant]

If you have a catcher's arm and happen to be left handed you are no longer a catcher, you are a pitcher.

This makes sense.

[JMobile]

majority batters are right handed.

This and Catchers can easily position themselves to pick-off the runner at First base.

[HoulihansTX]

Bryce Harper switched from catcher to OF once he hit the minors.

[The Giant]

not sure giant which reminds me of a story when i played little league baseball we had a left handed throwing catcher. Guys would laugh at him and throw things at him. Well one day he went nuts and kicked one of the kids in the balls. The kid that got kicked in the balls was extremely upset and couldn't breath. Well next day that same guy kicks the left handed throwing catcher in the balls. end of story

One of the greatest stories I've ever read here on SBR.

How are you not a paid poster, Smoke?

What a total injustice.

[The Giant]

Bryce Harper switched from catcher to OF once he hit the minors.

Yeah, but he throws right-handed, doesn't he?

[The Giant]

I did just realize one thing.

Making the throw to third base would be pretty difficult for a left-handed catcher.

[tb1984]

They eventually convert left-handed catchers to other positions because it's harder(there are more right handed batters) for left-handed catchers to throw out runners that try to steal second base. That's one of the reasons.

[jaygator]

For the same reason their arnt any left handed throwing infielders other than 1st base.

[Chi_archie]

you don't see left handed catchers mitts in the bag at any developmental level. You can get them, but rather than do the work little league coaches are more apt to just put that lefy at one of the other 9 spots

dale long did it with the pirates way back in the day.... he also is tied for the record with 8 games consecutively with a homer

[InTheDrink]

I did just realize one thing.

Making the throw to third base would be pretty difficult for a left-handed catcher.

i was until this post

and then the next few posts ignored it and i went back to

runners would be stealing third all fukkin day long against a lefty catcher

[You mad bro]

question is so dumb ....

[Seaweed]

Interesting question Giant. However, the answer is actually quite simple if we remember our basic history. I'm sure you recall that in the seventeenth century it was thought that the Devil baptised his followers with his left hand. As the Devil's identity remained anonymous, so too were the identity of the catchers behind their masks. Therefore, there are many references to the “left-hand side” for catchers being associated with evil.

[The Giant]

i was until this post

and then the next few posts ignored it and i went back to

runners would be stealing third all fukkin day long against a lefty catcher

I know, I know. I'm ashamed.

It's amazing it's ever been done before though. Like Brock and Archie have mentioned, there have been lefties before.

Hard to believe. That throw to third base would be a real bitch.

[The Giant]

Interesting question Giant. However, the answer is actually quite simple if we remember our basic history. I'm sure you recall that in the seventeenth century it was thought that the Devil baptised his followers with his left hand. As the Devil's identity remained anonymous, so too were the identity of the catchers behind their masks. Therefore, there are many references to the “left-hand side” for catchers being associated with evil.

Amazing, seaweed. This was the answer I was looking for, and if I knew my 17th century history better, I would've known it all along.

Thank you.

[Ghenghis Kahn]

Amazing, seaweed. This was the answer I was looking for, and if I knew my 17th century history better, I would've known it all along.

Thank you.

why are you trying to suck your own rooster?

[The Giant]

why are you trying to suck your own rooster?

Instead of stalking me repetitively, just report my "ghost".

Thanks.

[Chi_archie]

I think a strong armed catcher could do the throw to third, wouldn't be ideal, but it would be way better than a 3bmen or SS trying to throw to first.

just think of a guy like benito doing a snap throw to first to pick a batter off..

[InTheDrink]

Still an unnecessary liability. You happened to pick one of the three best throwing catchers in the last 20 years as your example by the way.

[Brock Landers]

Left-Handed and Left Out

Mark Lyons for The New York Times
The image is not reversed: Benny Distefano was a left-handed catcher in the majors 20 years ago. No lefty has played the position since.



By ALAN SCHWARZ
Published: August 15, 2009
The letters keep coming. Every few weeks, Benny Distefano will open his mail and find a letter from a Little Leaguer, or a parent of one, asking for advice. He is the only person they know who understands.
A Select Group


Left-handed catchers who played at least one game, since 1900:
Benny Distefano, 1989
Mike Squires, 1980
Dale Long, 1958
Homer Hillebrand, 1905
Jiggs Donahue, 1902
Joe Wall, 1902
Jiggs Donahue, 1901
Fred Tenney, 1901
Joe Wall, 1901





Keep up with the latest news on The Times’s baseball blog.
Go to the Bats Blog »
Major League Baseball

• Live Scoreboard
• Standings | Wild Card
• Stats | Injuries

Yankees

• Schedule/Results
• Roster | Stats

Mets

• Schedule/Results
• Roster | Stats

Enlarge This Image
Pittsburgh Pirates
Benny Distefano, in 1989, extended his career by catching.

Enlarge This Image
James G. Kligensmith/Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Dale Long caught briefly for the Cubs.



Twenty years ago this Tuesday, Distefano, then a hanging-on major leaguer, served as a left-handed catcher in a major league baseball game. No one has done so since. Like Ladies Night and pitchers named Wilbur, left-handed catchers are effectively extinct — for reasons on which there is bizarrely little consensus.
“I have no idea,” said Joe Mauer, the Minnesota Twins’ All-Star catcher (right-handed, naturally).
“Is it because there are more right-handed hitters?” offered Atlanta Braves catcher Brian McCann.
“There’s been nobody come into a game for 20 years? Really?” said a nonplussed Joe Torre, an All-Star catcher throughout the 1960s. “Well, first off, left-handed pitchers don’t throw the ball straight.”
Major league teams have been panting for more catchers since shinguards, begging for mothers to allow their sons to play there, and yet they cut off an entire stream of talent that happens to throw left-handed. In the last 100 years, Dale Long caught two innings for the Chicago Cubs in 1958, Mike Squires the same for the 1980 White Sox.
And since Aug. 18, 1989, when Distefano caught for the last time, baseball has embraced retro uniforms and even revenue sharing — but not the likes of Distefano. The minor leagues do not have one left-handed catcher right now.
“It’s a slow-changing game,” said Distefano, now the hitting coach of the West Michigan Whitecaps, a Detroit Tigers Class A affiliate. “It takes a creative manager that’s willing to go with something that might be a little outside the box.”
Distefano had that in late 1988, when he asked his Pittsburgh Pirates manager, Jim Leyland, if he could become the team’s emergency catcher. Distefano had adored catching as a boy on Brooklyn ball fields but was moved to the outfield. Leyland recalled how the world did not spin off its axis when his old boss Tony La Russa used Squires that way, so he allowed Distefano to attend instructional league that fall to relearn the position.
The next spring, when an experiment with 24-man rosters cost teams flexibility, Distefano stuck as a backup outfielder, first baseman and, yes, catcher. He was brought into three games for six innings. The only runner to attempt to steal on him was the Braves’ Oddibe McDowell on Aug. 18.
“Curveball in the dirt,” Distefano said. “Fairly close. I had as good a chance of getting him as anybody else.”
No lefty has strapped on the gear since. Few people know why. Youth leagues see the occasional left-handed catcher — gloves for them are readily available in local sporting-goods stores — but never in pro ball. Distefano understands better than anyone which theories make sense and which do not.
None is more specious than the Right-Handed Hitter Conjecture, which holds that on steal attempts left-handers have to throw around righties, who outnumber hitters from the other side. But right-handed catchers do not seem to struggle throwing past lefties; besides, while right-handed hitters made 62 percent of major league plate appearances 50 years ago, it is now almost even, 56 percent to 44.
Torre’s Wayward Southpaw Thesis was immediately dismissed by his fellow catcher turned manager Don Wakamatsu of the Seattle Mariners.
“There’s a lot of left-handed pitchers who don’t reach the major leagues because their ball is too straight,” Wakamatsu said.
To the extent that a left-hander’s throw to second would generally tail away from the runner rather than into him, Distefano countered, “You can still fade it back into the base with more experience.”
Snap pickoff throws to first are less important than throws to third — as Torre put it, “The runners only go in one direction” — and on the latter, right-handed hitters would impede a left-handed-throwing catcher. But Distefano brushed that back, too.
“When I had to throw to third, I cheated a little bit — I sat a couple of inches farther back and my left foot was a little open,” he said. “I didn’t have to shuffle my feet because I had good arm strength. And when guys steal third, 9 of 10 times it’s on the pitcher anyway.”
Distefano offered two explanations. Bunts toward third base, he said, cause problems for left-handed catchers. In scampering to grab the ball, transferring it to their left hand and throwing to either first or second base, their bodies get closed and clumsy. Throws for right-handers are far more open and natural.
But the primary problem Distefano encountered was with plays at home. Because his glove was on his right hand, every accurate throw to the runner’s side of the plate would have to be reached for backhanded, impeding a quick tag. And on outfielder throws up the first-base line, reaching out with his right hand would leave his throwing shoulder wide open to the runner.
“If there’s going to be a bang-bang play, the left-handed catcher’s going to get hurt,” he said.
Distefano did manage to parlay his newfound versatility into a better-paying job in Japan in 1990. He attended the Houston Astros’ spring camp in 1992 — with the pitchers and catchers — and made the team in part because he could serve as emergency catcher. He never got into a game behind the plate, but they needed an extra body with Craig Biggio moving to second base.
Come to think of it, speaking of second base, why don’t any lefties get to play there, either? And not at shortstop, nor at third?
“I guess all the lefties end up as pitchers,” Astros shortstop Miguel Tejada said.
Apparently so. About 15 years ago, a left-handed teenager for the Lumps Gas Station summer-league team in Clifton, Tex., played one game at short before, he recalled, “They said left-handers aren’t supposed to play there” and was moved. That teenager was Zach Duke, now an All-Star left-handed pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Not one left-handed thrower has played an inning at shortstop in the majors in 100 years. As for second base, there have been only three since World War II: George Crowe for the 1958 Cubs (for two outs), Sam McDowell for the 1970 Cleveland Indians (for two right-handed batters before returning to the mound) and Don Mattingly (by an incensed Billy Martin for the last out of the infamous 1983 pine tar game).
“Second basemen can’t do it left-handed — you can’t turn a double play like that, because you’d accept the ball and have to turn all the way around,” said Texas Rangers third baseman Michael Young, who before this season played exclusively in the middle infield. “Shortstops, you’d still have trouble throwing the ball on a D.P. I’ve never seen it. And I don’t expect to, either.”
Which brings us to third base and the versatile Squires, who was one of the aforementioned southpaw catchers. A few lefties have briefly filled in at third (including Mattingly in 1986) but Squires played there in 13 games for the 1984 White Sox.
Left-handed third basemen have to backhand all plays in the shortstop hole to their left, which restricts their range — unless their coordination is so spectacular that they would be playing shortstop in the first place.
Squires, now a scout for the Reds, said that left-handed third basemen get eaten up on bunts, because flinging the ball quickly to their left while charging is virtually impossible.
But left-handed catchers? Squires doesn’t see why not.
“You’re talking about old-timers who don’t want to change,” he said. “I always wanted to be a catcher growing up. But I was not allowed to.”
Distefano became a catcher solely to extend his career. Instead, he lengthened his legacy, not only among baseball trivia buffs but within the left-handed catching community, for whom he remains a hero.
“I didn’t know the 20th anniversary of my last time out there was coming up,” Distefano said. “I definitely will celebrate now. It’s nice. It’s really rewarding to be remembered in a positive way.”

[Chi_archie]

ah bunts down third base line and tagging runner's to home...two more we hadn't thought of, that the article mentions....

I think more than anything anymore its just habit, just how some potentially decent white RB's get moved from that position by football coaches.

you know what else is rare? an african american catcher.. I can't think of two many. I go back to Roy Campanella and Lloyd McClendon (sorta)

I guess they aren't smart enough

[Brock Landers]

i was shocked to hear there have been ZERO left handed short stops, and almost none at 2nd base, had never thought of this

[Chi_archie]

Brock what position does your son play?

[InTheDrink]

ah bunts down third base line and tagging runner's to home...two more we hadn't thought of, that the article mentions....

I think more than anything anymore its just habit, just how some potentially decent white RB's get moved from that position by football coaches.

you know what else is rare? an african american catcher.. I can't think of two many. I go back to Roy Campanella and Lloyd McClendon (sorta)

I guess they aren't smart enough

Common with that catcher nonsense. Charles Johnson was a fantastic fukkin catcher. Bottom line is there arent many African American players when you get down to it.

And I don't see the bunt down the third base line...is it based on throwing to third? Throwing to first is easier for a lefty and no difference for second.

[The Giant]

The game is set up to benefit right-handed players, no doubt about it.

Imagine if Abner Doubleday decided to have first base and third base switched around, where the baserunners were running clockwork, instead of counterclock. The game would be much easier suited for lefties.

One thing we can surmise is, Abner Doubleday wasn't a southpaw.

[iifold]

SBR should delete this thread...

Gives whole forum a bad rep...

Unreal...

[Chi_archie]

Common with that catcher nonsense. Charles Johnson was a fantastic fukkin catcher. Bottom line is there arent many African American players when you get down to it.

And I don't see the bunt down the third base line...is it based on throwing to third? Throwing to first is easier for a lefty and no difference for second.

got anyone other than Charles Johnson?

throwing to first easier on a bunt for a lefty? I don't think it would be easier

[Dutch]

"...while right-handed hitters made 62 percent of major league plate appearances 50 years ago, it is now almost even, 56 percent to 44."



Lefties make up 10% of the population but 44% of plate appearances..I wouldn't have thought that. Doesn't seem that high.

[InTheDrink]

got anyone other than Charles Johnson?

throwing to first easier on a bunt for a lefty? I don't think it would be easier

There isn't one in MLB now. Do you think American blacks arent as intelligent as Dominican blacks or Latinos?

I can't imagine how it's easier for a righty. Lefty picks up the ball and throws without turning unlike a righty. That article makes it sounds like a guy is gloving a ball....no catcher gloves any bunt.

[The Giant]

Russell Martin is half black.

He is the only one left.

They are a dying breed.

Whatever happened to the days of Roy Campanella, and, you know, that other guy?