Switch thrower
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In baseball, a switch-thrower is a thrower who is able to throw with both the right and left hand from the pitcher's mound.
Three 19th-century pitchers are known to have thrown with both hands: Tony Mullane in 1882 and again in 1893, Elton Chamberlain in 1888, and Larry Corcoran in 1884. Greg A. Harris is the only major league pitcher in the modern era to pitch with both his left and his right arm. A natural righty, by 1986 he could throw well enough with his left hand that he felt capable of pitching with either hand in a game. Harris was not allowed to throw lefty in a regular-season game until September 28, 1995, the next-to-last game of his career. Against the Cincinnati Reds in the ninth inning, Harris (then a member of the Montreal Expos) retired Reggie Sanders pitching right-handed, then switched to his left hand for the next two hitters, Hal Morris and Ed Taubensee, who both batted left-handed. Harris walked Morris but got Taubensee to ground out. He then went back to his right hand to retire Bret Boone to end the inning (DeMarco 2007). One Division I NCAA pitcher, Pat Venditte of the Creighton Bluejays, regularly pitches with both arms (Schwarz 2007).
Switch-throwers are commonly taught to switch-throw at a young age. For instance, Venditte's father trained him vigorously in ambidextrous throwing since the age of three (Schwarz 2007).
[edit] References
- DeMarco, Tony. "Expert: Bonds Might Not Hold Record Long". MSNBC, March 27, 2007. Accessed 12 June 2007.
- Schwarz, Alan (April 6, 2007), “Throwing Batters Curves Before Throwing a Pitch”, The New York Times., <http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/06/sports/baseball/06pitcher.html?ex=1333512000&en=a34837d6efb38b04&ei=5124>
[edit] Further reading
- The Associated Press. "Ambidextrous pitcher stars at Creighton". MSNBC, May 3, 2006. Accessed 12 June 2007.
- Holtzman, Jerome. "A lesson in switch-pitching". MajorLeagueBaseball.com via the Internet Archive, March 3, 2000. Accessed 12 June 2007.

