When I was in high school, I had an expository speech I did at speech contests about the superiority of left-handers (ahem). It was more than a bit tongue-in-cheek, mind…
When I was in high school, I had an expository speech I did at speech contests about the superiority of left-handers (ahem). It was more than a bit tongue-in-cheek, mind you, but it was fun and went over pretty well.
Amanda forwarded me this NPR article from this morning: In Sports, Southpaws Needn’t Feel Left Out : NPR
You see, while lefties moan that the world at large discriminates against them — even though in modern times we usually find ourselves ruled by them, i.e. southpaw Presidents Truman, Ford, Reagan, Bush the elder and Clinton (and yes, two guys named McCain and Obama) — our sinister brethren have all the advantages in sports whenever they directly face right-handers.
Now an engineering professor named David Peters has come up with some basic statistics, which show what we righties always knew anyway, that baseball in particular is a gauche paradise. And that ain’t no left-handed compliment.
In particular, in person-on-person sports, left-handers tend to do statistically better.
Whereas only about 10 percent of the whole human population is lefty, Peters revealed that about 25 percent of major leaguers are the minority-handed sort of people. More significant, in the Hall of Fame, of the 70 pitchers, 15 were southpaw — more than twice the Homo sapiens average. And hitters: of the 138 in Cooperstown, 59 were lefty, and eight more half-lefty switch-hitters. That means that an incredible 46 percent of the best hitters ever swung at those appetizing right-handed slants.
This is not, in fact, a demonstration of left-handed superiority, though it pains me to say so. It’s simply a matter of familiarity. If most major league players, for example, do things right-handedly — which impacts pitching, batting, etc. — that’s how most major league players are going to get used to playing against. The lefties do it a bit different, and therefore are less easy to deal with and so are more successful. Ditto for the examples given in basketball, tennis, boxing, etc.
When you look at golf, it’s the reverse.
The best proof that lefties have an advantage in man-to-man competition comes, conversely, from golf, where you’re not playing your opponent, only that neutral little ball. In the whole history of the PGA, left-handers have won only 37 tournaments, and Phil Mickelson has personally accounted for more than half of them. Mickelson might have won even more if he didn’t make so many ditzy decisions.
That’s because (a) as noted, the competition is against the ball, not the player (though if lefties and righties have different hitting characteristics, one might expect a small advantage to lefties in course design). More importantly, (b) golf equipment is almost exclusively right-handed. A left-hander is 99% likely to learn to golf right-handedly, which puts them at something of a disadvantage. (That’s my excuse, and I’m sticking to it.)
Hmmmm … maybe there’s a class action law suit in there somewhere …
UPDATE: An article from last month on why lefties may be more successful than average at the presidential game.
