Slang Editorial :: Never Underestimate The Value Of A Holla'

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Doing It The Hard Way, Always

On the topic of fairly random and unhelpful statistical lumpings, one such category would be absolutely meaningless "_____ greatest by a player who bats righty, throws lefty."

Why? Basically NO ONE bats righty and throws lefty. Like, really, NO ONE. You would think out of only six possible batting/throwing combos (right/left/switch batting x right/left throwing) there would be a decent dispersion of players in all categories, and there is... in the other five. But of the righty swingers lefty throwers category there has really just only been a strange small handful -- literally 25.

Steve Treder of The Hardball Times earlier this year did us the service of evaluating and ranking all twenty-five of them, which you can read here. A glimpse through the names yields but five that present any note to me:

5) Brian Hunter (the stocky first-baseman, not the light-hitting CF speedster

Brian Hunter holds a bit of note to me as he was responsible for sharing first-base duties in the early 90s Braves Dynasty with Sid Bream (whoa, that name doesn't even sound real anymore) before Fred McGriff was brought on-board in July 1993 and my entire world exploded. As the Braves have been my favorite team for the past twenty seasons, all of their various men have meant something to me at one point or another and Hunter is no different. However, at his peak--which lasted about two seasons--he was a decent platooon player, but no more

4) Jason Lane

A recent supporting player on the Houston Astrosin the earlier part of this decade. I am familiar with his exploits.

3) Cody Lane

A recent supporting player for the Florida Marlins. I am not familiar with his exploits but I have heard his name mentioned before.

2) Ryan Ludwick

A legitimately good player who had an excellent past two seasons for St. Louis before this year's relative mediocrity (though he has been coming on stronger as the year comes to a close).

And of course, our top dog:

1) Rickey Henderson

Literally the only player on this list to have a great or arguably even good career, The Rickey is The Man when it comes to Bats Lefty, Throws Righty. Once again, Rickey, like with everything else he's done, stands alone.

Of course, this entire topic is of slightly greater note to one Jeffrey Beaumont, because ... drum roll... like all of these men, he too bats righty, and throws lefty. Which probably makes me the twenty-ninth greatest Bats Righty, Throws Lefty ballplayer ever (hey, I could throw 74 mph when I was in 9th grade). Seriously though, this is not something I choose--and according to Treder, of all the six possiblities is the least physically advantageous combination I could have been (Still, thanks, Dad!). And doesn't this description more or less define my entire existence:

So here we've got athletes displaying enough ambidextrousness to bat one way and throw the other. Yet not only do they eschew the switch-hitting option (which admittedly is far easier to do in theory than in practice), these guys find themselves in the least advantageous circumstance both offensively and defensively. One hopes it came about through some manner of unusual and immutable brain wiring, because to the extent that deliberate decision-making might have been involved, these guys got it double-wrong.

It's so perfectly deprarious I couldn't have dreamt it better myself.

Me and Rickey, down by the schoolyard.

Labels: baseball, BEAUMONT, case studies, curiosities, deprarious, lolgore

posted by Nihilist Loves Hate, Hates Everything at 9/30/2009 06:49:00 PM 0 comments

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