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When do you know know whether baby is right or left-handed?

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shardian:

--- Quote from: shmokes on April 26, 2007, 05:19:21 pm ---There's a guy in my golf class who's pretty good (compared to me at least).  He said that he's been golfing since he was like five years old, but had to start pretty much from scratch a couple years ago when he decided to switch hands.  He's left-handed, but his dad made him golf right handed so he wouldn't mess up his baseball swing.  I got a kick out of that.

--- End quote ---

That is a retarded dad then. Everyone knows that (good) lefty batters have a huge advantage over righties in little league. Shorter fence, worst player in the outfield, can see the ball from a righty pitcher quicker, etc.

ChadTower:

In 15 years of playing and 10 of coaching, I have yet to see more than a couple little league fields with a shorter right field fence than left.  It's common that they don't even HAVE a right field fence because there is another field in that direction that overlaps a little bit.  A long ball that gets past the right fielder just keeps going and going and remains in play.  It always used to annoy me that the righties got to swing toward a fence but I had to hit the ball 50 miles to get a "real" home run.

You also put your strongest outfield arm in right field because it's further from third base.  Often your right fielder has the second strongest arm on the team, behind your third baseman and most of your pitchers (at this level the third baseman and right fielder are commonly your 1-2 pitchers too).

shardian:

--- Quote from: ChadTower on April 27, 2007, 09:06:24 am ---
In 15 years of playing and 10 of coaching, I have yet to see more than a couple little league fields with a shorter right field fence than left.  It's common that they don't even HAVE a right field fence because there is another field in that direction that overlaps a little bit.  A long ball that gets past the right fielder just keeps going and going and remains in play.  It always used to annoy me that the righties got to swing toward a fence but I had to hit the ball 50 miles to get a "real" home run.

You also put your strongest outfield arm in right field because it's further from third base.  Often your right fielder has the second strongest arm on the team, behind your third baseman and most of your pitchers (at this level the third baseman and right fielder are commonly your 1-2 pitchers too).

--- End quote ---

I've seen my share of little league baseball in my day and let me tell you, only a FOOL would put their strongest arm in right field. In most leagues, there are only a handful of leftie hitters - half of them suck usually. I would say that 80% of all outfield hits in little league got to left or center field. Almost always, you put you best arm and fielder in center field and let him cover left center and right center depending on the batter. Your right fielder is usually the kid that needs to be on the field the league minimum. Best arm in right field??? Either up there in Jersey all kids are left handed, or you just lost all credibiltity as a baseball coach.

mpm32:
In many countries, you won't find any left handed people.  This is because they strictly wipe with the left and eat with the right.  So, they force young left handed kids to switch to the right.

ChadTower:
I don't live in Jersey, for one thing.

Second, I don't play the whole "keep the bad kid out there as little as possible" strategy.  A coach is there to teach in Little League.  Winning is great but not nearly as important as effective teaching of the strategy and skills of the sport.  Little League is not high school or college.

I've run into many, many, many coaches who "coach" almost exclusively to win and they are rarely effective teachers.  They turn over a lot of players who just aren't any good because they stood off to the side while he works with the kids who in reality need the least amount of teaching to succeed at the given level.

EDIT:  after thinking about this a minute, this is a conversation I've had about a billion times and I'm not interested in having it here.  It is the basic difference in philosophy at any given level between those who feel winning is most important versus those who feel teaching is most important.  Differing opinions especially dependent on what specific age group is being addressed.

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