Baseball

I previously mentioned that I was once a pitcher. And when I say “once” I mean once. It was one inning and it was one of my most memorable moments in my short-lived little league career.

Another memorable moment I have from little league was when I won the award on my team for most walks in a season. That was in Minors, my first year where we were actually pitched to by other kids. Before that, it was either T-ball or Farm where they used a pitching machine. I only had one year of each of those and then went straight up to minors. Most kids had two years of Farm league, but I was one of the few that got drafted by a Minor league coach after one year.

Now you’re probably thinking that I must have been pretty good to have been drafted early, but I wasn’t. In fact, I don’t remember being very good at all. From what I remember, I wasn’t a good hitter. I played catcher, first base (of course), and outfield, and I don’t remember being amazing in any of those positions. The only thing that I can think of is that I was drafted early because I was left-handed.

Going back to my award for most walks on my team, I’m thinking my coach was smarter than I gave him credit for. Although I would love to let you all think that I just had a really good eye and that’s why I always walked, I feel as though I owe it to you to tell you the truth. Instead of getting walks because of my good eye, I got the most walks because none of the kids could pitch to a left-hander. Well, I take that back, they pitched to me very well…right at me. Pretty much every at bat I either walked, or was hit by the pitch. Even though the ball was probably only coming at 30 or 40 mph, it was still a little difficult for me. In fact, because of that I decided to make that my last year of baseball.

It’s too bad that I made that decision to quit too because my left-handedness could have taken me so far in baseball…all the way up until I went to find a new glove at the local Sports Authority. That’s where, after looking through 100 right-handed gloves and finding only one left-handed glove that also happened to be pink, I would have quit for sure anyways.

However, if you can get past the limited gear for left-handers, being left-handed can definitely have its advantages in baseball. Compared to the normal population, the percentage of left-handers in baseball is two to three times higher than the normal population. Why you ask? Well, here’s a few things to think about…

1. Lefties don’t have as far to run. Yep, that’s it. Lefties don’t have as far to run after they hit the ball. They get a good one or two steps on right-handed batters after hitting the ball and that makes a HUGE difference.
2. As a kid growing up, it’s always your goal to be in the infield. As a lefty, playing first base at least some of the time is pretty much a gimme. Do lefties really have that much of an advantage over right-handers at first base? I don’t think so, but the unspoken rules of baseball mandate that the coach put the lefty at first base.
3. Pitching. For whatever reason, left-handed pitchers just have more success. It’s probably because they’re a minority and it’s harder for batters to get used to it.
4. Superior Intelligence. Ok, I have nothing to back this up, but I think all left-handers know deep down that they’re supremely intelligent over their right-handed counterparts.

Southpaws

I have decided that I should provide some interesting and meaningful information in this blog as well. My first bit of interesting information stems from my visit to the right-handed doctor today. Okay, I didn’t really notice if the actual doctor was right-handed or not, but the assistant was definitely left-handed. She was asking me which arm I wanted to have blood drawn from and I said “My left hand…I’m a southpaw.” She looked at me really weird like she had no idea what I was talking about. Then I just quickly told her that I was left-handed. Many left-handed people know where the term “Southpaw” originates, but I’ll expound on it for all those who don’t know, or in case there are any right-handers reading this.

The term Southpaw started in baseball and it referred to left-handed pitchers. Apparently when baseball first started, and even in many ballparks today, the home plate was at the western end of the stadium. That meant that a left-handed pitcher threw from the south side.

I guess I am a southpaw to the truest sense of the word. I pitched one inning in my prolific career as a little league baseball player. Actually, I guess I would be considered a Southwestpaw since the field I was playing on at the time had the home plate facing towards the Northwest. Either way it was the only inning I ever played. I guess my coach thought I would do abnormally well because I was a lefty…but it didn’t turn out that way. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but I know I only pitched one inning and that’s enough of an indicator of how I did.

Desks

One of the biggest problems I had during grades 7-12 was the desks. I’m not sure if most Junior High and High Schools are like this, but my schools had the small desks that were attached to the seat on one side. The other side was open so you could get in and out. As one might expect, they all had the desk on the right-hand side. The actual desk part was barely big enough to fit a textbook on them, but the convenient arm rest for all people right-handed was amazingly huge. I don’t think the right-handed kids knew how nice that arm rest was (at least I’m assuming it was nice). I, on the other hand, couldn’t even fit my left-hand on the desk space to write. I’d have to hold my whole arm in the air as I was writing. That made things very difficult. Once I got too tired to hold my arm in the air, I would try folding my left leg over my right and then leaning my elbow on it as I was writing. Then, once my leg got sore from being in that position having my arm put pressure on it, I’d go back to holding my arm in the air again.

I guess the one good thing about that now is that my left arm is now really strong...definitely stronger than any normal right-handed person’s arm. The bad thing about it is that my grades could have suffered because of how much more difficult it was for me to write. Luckily, the ingenius way of thinking that also came with my left-handedness made up for my lack of words (have I mentioned yet that I’m extremely sarcastic?).

Out of all my classes from grades 7 through 12, the only class that had a left-handed desk was my 7th grade Pre-algebra class. I loved that class. I didn’t do so hot with the math stuff, but it felt so good to walk into that class and sit down in a desk that I knew had been engineered and built specifically for me. Oh the memories I have from writing at that desk. The class was during the middle of the day so it gave my left arm the break that it needed. In fact, that class is pretty much the only good memory I have from that school, but that’s a different story…I would say that many, many people out there hated their 7th and 8th grades and wish they could completely forget them.

It’s a good thing that the company I work for (an educational provider) doesn’t have those desks. I don’t think I could work for them if they did. I always hear that if someone doesn’t believe in their company’s values then they shouldn’t work for it.

Scissors

Remember those all-plastic scissors that you got in kindergarten that came in different colors? Green ones and red ones and blue ones. You know, the ones with the little thin piece of metal along the supposed cutting edges? Remember how they never really cut anything very well? Well, they of course didn’t work well for me, and every other pair of right-handed scissors I used cut just about as bad as them.
I have only ever used one pair of scissors that I liked and I rarely got to use them. They were my mom’s light blue, left-handed scissors. As I’m writing this, I’m realizing that my mom liked light blue left-handed things (see my Golf Club post). I was probably in my teens the first time I used them and I literally only used them a handful of times. Every other time I’ve used scissors in my life was with a right-handed pair. Of course, I used scissors as little as possible because they never worked for me. Yep, that’s correct. Until I used those light-blue left-handed scissors, I never believed that scissors were actually meant to cut things cleanly. You see, all my experiences with scissors ended up with bent, torn, edges rather than smooth clean cuts like scissors are supposed to make. In fact, there have been many times where I ended up with no edges at all, because the scissors never did cut anything.

When I tell people that scissors were always a pain for me as a kid, they always just assume that I’m talking about the ones that have different-sized, contoured finger holes for the thumb to fit into one, and the other fingers to fit into the other one. Those were indeed extremely painful (more-so than regular scissors) and uncomfortable, but those weren’t the only ones I had problems with. Nooooooo way, there’s much more to the mechanics of scissors that make them difficult to use left-handed.

Aside from the differences in the finger grooves between the two, there’s one other major difference. The blades are switched around! In other words, in right-handed scissors, the blade that goes up as you open them is on the right-hand side. In left-handed scissors, the blade that goes up as you open them is on the left-hand side. This minor difference causes major problem for left-handers using right-handed scissors.

For one, left-handers using right-handed scissors, causes the blades to pull apart from each other rather than pushing together like happens when a right-handed person uses them. This is because of the way their hands put pressure on the finger holes. That, in turn, causes for the horrible cuts.

I figured this out in my teens and overcame the problem by wrapping my thumb around the finger hole and pulling it towards me as I cut. This, however, becomes very painful after a while so I just avoid using scissors when I can.

Second, by having that blade go up on the right-hand side (which is actually the side the left-hander can see as they’re cutting), left-handers can’t see what they’re cutting. We have to contort our head completely around to the other side of the scissors to actually see where we’re cutting. I think I have lifelong neck injuries because of the way I have to cock it to the side while I’m cutting (because if you’ve read my spiral notebook post you’ll know that there’s no way in heck that I’d just guess and take the chance of not cutting right on the line). In fact, I bet if you did a study on percentages of left-handers versus right-handers who have neck problems, left-handers would win and it wouldn’t even be close. And while you’re doing that study, you probably ought to study carpal tunnel, as well, because of the way we have to awkwardly pull as we’re cutting.

Now just to give some resolution to one of the things I’m sure you’re thinking. I haven’t bought a pair of left-handed scissors yet because of the principle of the matter. It’s difficult to grasp that there are engineers in big companies sitting there deciding the best way to optimize the experience for the right-handed population and while completely disregarding the entire left-handed population.

Spiral Notebooks

As a kid I was always aware of my illness (meaning my left-handed tendencies), but I just lived my life as if it was normal. Going along with that, I just must have assumed that everything ever made for kids in school was meant to be extremely uncomfortable, inefficient, and difficult to use. That was before I realized that that was only the case for lefties! My first memory of the difficulties of being left-handed in elementary school was the infamous spiral notebook. Infamous? Are you kidding? NO! I’m serious! As a left-hander in school, the spiral notebook was my worst enemy! Why you say? Well I, like many left-handers, for some reason learned to write with my hand contorted and hooked around over the page. I think the main reason why I did it was so that I could see the words I was writing. Right-handers have it easy, they can write and write and never struggle to see what they’ve written because their hand is already to the right of it. Left-handed writers, on the other hand (no pun intended), adopt this awkward hook style of writing because that’s the best way to see what they’re writing. And as a young kid trying to learn how to write and make it look good, that’s very important.

Of course along with the hooked hand, I would always smear the words I had just written and sometimes it was to the point where they were illegible. So, it’s well documented that I already had a problem figuring out how to write (usually with pencil in elementary school) without smearing the words and possibly getting lead poisoning from the thick layers of lead that formed along the side of my palm. Now just add in that awkward, horrible spiral on spiral notebooks. I remember times when I looked down at the side of my palm below my pinky and could see the indentions from the spiral in my hand. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were times where the spiral actually cut through. Then I would do the only thing I could do to ease the pain and rub it with my right hand. That just got all the lead that was on the side of my left hand, all over my right hand. Then I would either struggle to get the lead off both my hands (which is very hard to do as you’re sitting in class), or else I forgot about it and ended up touching my face sometime throughout the day causing lead to get all over it too. By the end of the day I would look like a beat-up veteran coming home from war. I felt like one too because of how much pain I was in.

I remember telling my teacher one time about that problem I had and she recommended that I flip the notebook around and start writing from the last page. That may have been a good idea for some people, but anybody who knows me well knows that something like that just wouldn’t work for me. I’m what some might call “anal” when it comes to things like that. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a perfectionist, or if it has something to do with my left-handedness, but using a notebook backwards is practically impossible for me. Even if I tried it I wouldn’t get anything done because I would be thinking about how messed up it was that I was using a spiral notebook backwards instead of actually thinking about whatever I was supposed to be writing.

How did I ever overcome this horrible tragedy? Well, one day my mom (who is also left-handed) taught me how to write properly. Fortunately enough, that fixed everything for me. Now the only problems I have when it comes to writing is making it legible enough for others to read it.

My First Golf Club

As I was trying to decide the way I would go about sharing my experiences, frustrations, and joys of being left-handed, I decided to provide my blog with a simple and logical blueprint. To me, the only way to do it is in a chronological order, beginning with when I first became aware of being “different” from others.

It all began when I was a very young child of around 4 years old. I was with my dad at a golf course playing in the grass while he was practicing at the driving range. I went with him many times but this time is the one that sticks out most. After he had finished practicing, we were walking back to the car when out of the blue he stopped at a trash can along the walkway back to the cars. When I looked over at the trash can I noticed that there was a golf club sticking out, and apparently he had noticed it too. It was a kids’ golf club that had been broken in half somehow. My guess is somebody had snapped it over their leg for whatever reason. Anyhow, apparently I had been bugging my dad for a golf club and he decided that he could probably fix it up enough for me to play with for a while.

So he took it home and soldered (at least I think that’s what he did) it back together and gave to me for the next time we went to the golf course. I was so excited to finally have my own golf club but there was one problem with it, it was a right-handed golf club.

By that time it had already been established that I was without doubt left-handed. I threw and ate with my left hand and kicked with my left foot from a very early age. I guess you can say I was afflicted with this illness from the very beginning. I probably kicked with my left foot when I was in my mother’s womb. So what made my dad think that a right-handed golf club would work, is still a mystery to me. Either way, there was no way I was going to turn down my first golf club so I took it and tried to play with it as good as I could.

After a while of playing with that golf club, I finally outgrew it and moved up to a youth set that was also right-handed. After that was another set of right-handed golf clubs. By now I was probably 11 or 12 and still the worst golfer in the world. This was not normal for me, however, because I was actually decent at most sports I played. I was a stud on my soccer team as a kid (probably because the other kids weren’t used to defending a left-footed kid), and I was drafted a year early to the minor level in little league. That didn’t matter though, when I picked up a golf club the golf ball laughed at me and the grass around it started to tremble.

After much frustration, I finally decided to try out my mom’s light blue, left-handed set of clubs. I knew I would be humiliated at the golf course carrying around a light blue women’s set of golf clubs but I was pretty used to being humiliated at the golf course so it didn’t much matter to me.

Unfortunately, that set of clubs didn’t make much of a difference. By that time I was so messed up that there was no fixing it. Unfortunately, to this day and after many, many attempts, I have yet to hit a golf ball that was both straight and in the air. In fact, I haven’t been golfing in probably 10 years and if my dad and brothers ever ask me to go with them it’s pretty much a given that I will only be driving the golf cart. That’s okay though because in my mind, the best part of golfing is driving the golf cart. I always like to pick the biggest hills and hit them straight on. Sometimes the cart makes it all the way to the top, and sometimes it doesn’t. Someday I plan on spending some money and getting golf lessons, but I just can’t bring myself to do it quite yet.

After asking my dad why he always got me right-handed golf clubs, he said it was because he wanted me to learn how to golf right-handed because it was so difficult to find left-handed golf clubs. Apparently they had already been through that ordeal buying my mom’s set.

Either way, that was my first experience with using something meant for right-handed people and not having it go well.

It Begins

Some people say it’s genetic, some say it isn’t. I haven’t done too much research on it for fear of what the answer will be. All I know is that it is something I have no control over and even if I did have control over it, I wouldn’t change a thing. I’m just this way. Nothing anybody says can change me, not even the urging of my parents, brothers, sisters, or friends can change the way I am. Whether I am this way because I made an unconscious decision at one time in my life, or because of my genetic code, I cannot say. What I can say is that I am proud of who I am and rather than trying to “fit-in” with the majority, I have embraced my differences and try to make the best of them.

Ok, so in case you somehow missed the title of this page, I’m not talking about what one might think, I’m actually talking about being a left-handed person in a right-handed world. As I mentioned earlier, even if I could I wouldn’t change a thing. Although left-handed people may be the most secretly oppressed people in the world, I have accepted my differences and done my best to overcome any challenges presented. Some people reading this might say something like “Most secretly oppressed? How can he claim to be secretly oppressed?” And to that I would say that those people are likely right-handed. But I will stick with my statement that left-handed people are secretly oppressed. In fact, that’s the best way I can think of to explain it. At times the oppression has been so secret that I myself didn’t even recognize it! However, as I have grown up and started to learn about life and how things are, I have started to notice more and more the subtle things done to make life easier for right-handed people, but more difficult for left-handed people such as me.