An interesting player in the Yankee's farm system pitched in a Spring Training game yesterday. He's a righty. He's a lefty. Thats right folks, he's a “switch” pitcher. Sportscenter rolled a clip where this pitcher, Pat Venditte, as a Staten Island Yankee pitching against a Brooklyn Cyclone's switch hitter. This caused umpires to actually create rules about how many times a batter and pitcher can switch throwing hands or side of the bat (because the two in the clip went back and forth).
Update: Here's the Video:
In order to switch pitch really effecitively, Pat uses a special 6 finger glove. This glove allows him to switch the hand that the glove will go on while on the mound (in other eliminating the need for two gloves). I couldn't find a picture of his exact six finger glove, but I was able to find another example:
(From http://jaspry.blogspot.com/)
The obvious question is, how did Pat do? Here's his line from yesterday:
So he wasn't lights out, and he had some control issues however he didn't implode and he had a better day than Oliver Perez (zing). His pitching display was interesting to watch, and surprisingly did not feel like a gimick because this is Pat's skill and talent. Honestly, I hope he makes the majors one day, and other ambidextrous pitchers as well. Being an ambidextrous pitcher has to be hard, especially when looking at all of the training and mechanics have to be mastered twice. If an ambidextrous pitcher can master pitching with both arms, that player would become a tremendous assesst in the bullpen.
