In a Sept. 4 Boston Globe article on the U.S. Open, Bud Collins wrote about "those sinister figures: the lefties. Nobody likes lefthanders." And he went on to mention their "slimy spins."
One-hundred and four years earlier, Harry Vardon, who was apparently pretty big on the golf scene back then, said of us lefties, "Never saw one who was worth a damn."
First of all, Bud and Harry, I resent that. Unfortunately, I've asked my friends, and they agree: if I'm anything, I'm sinister, slimy and not worth a damn. Also, no one likes me. My parents tried to save me from all this - when I was younger, they tied my left hand behind my back and forced me to do everything right-handed. That's actually not true. Segue into great-story timeout:
It was a brisk fall day, and my dad and I were playing whiffleball for the first time. I was really cute, and my maroon Phillies hat was too big for me, and unfortunately, I missed on the first 20 pitches my dad threw, mostly by very wide margins. Instead of giving me up for adoption, my dad had a better idea: "Why don't we turn you around and bat lefty?" I blasted the next pitch over my dad's head, "blasted" being a relative word since it was a plastic bat and I was three.
And I've been a lefty ever since. And proud of it. In fact, you might even have noticed that the name of this column is "The Lefty Groove." It says it up at the top, near the picture of that good-looking guy. Go ahead, take a look. I thought it would be a good name because it would imply a loose, offbeat, wacky column. Not doing-cocaine wacky. But wacky.
This column wasn't always "The Lefty Groove" though. I considered "Hoff the Wall" (funny, but I just couldn't go through with it) and "Ben Around the World" (too P-Diddy). I wanted to do "Plan B," but several of my girl friends informed me that it's also the name of the morning-after emergency contraceptive pill, which they thought might have a negative connotation with female readers.
I polled a lot of girls, asking what came to mind when I said "Plan B," and most said the morning-after pill (don't worry Mom and Dad, Liz said "parachutes, escape hatches, and the movie Entrapment"). The bottom line was that I didn't want to pepper my vast female readership with constant reminders of the potentially-negative consequences of premarital sex, because we're in college, and frankly, we should be having all the premarital sex we want.
Although if you're a girl and you think I should use "Plan B" instead of The Lefty Groove, send me an e-mail and let me know. (Actually, if you're a girl and you're just reading this, period, please let me know.)
Also - wait, what's that? You're curious about lefties? Well no sweat; I'll answer your questions.
1) Are you a lefty in everything?
No. I write and eat right-handed. My left arm used to be stronger in high school when I played a lot of sports, but now that I'm in college, eating and writing are basically the two things I do the most, so my right arm's much stronger.
2) Is being a lefty really an advantage in sports?
Sure; to be fair, Collins actually wrote, "Nobody likes lefties; at least playing against them." I can usually get the first step on much more athletic players in basketball. That's really my only advantage. In fact, if anyone who plays pickup at the gym is reading this, I'm screwed.
Last year in intramural softball, I homered over the right field fence at Fletcher Field onto Professor's Row (thank you, BALCO). My roommate, Mike DeBartolo (who was nursing a shoulder "injury" at the time), complained that a lefty had an unfair advantage because righties had no fence to aim for in left field. And, for once, he was right. (Of course, I told him to stop whining and hit opposite field.)
And in tennis, my "slimy spin" is usually worth an extra point or two at the beginning of a match. I actually played tennis with both hands until I was six. Then they made me pick a side. I wanted to wear an orange shirt with red shorts, I couldn't tie my shoes, and they wanted me to decide the fate of my tennis future? I think I wet myself.
Also, a lot of the world's greatest fencers are lefties, which should be useful if a lefty vs. righty Middle Ages-style war ever breaks out.
3) Are you in consortium with the devil?
No. Not usually. Left-handers generally haven't been in consortium with the devil since the late 1800s.
4) Why are you guys so weird and witty?
I'm not sure that we are. If you're listening to Yogi Berra or Casey Stengel or Ben Hoffman or Bill "The Spaceman" Lee, I can see why you might think that. ("I think about the cosmic snowball theory," Lee once said. "A few million years from now the sun will burn out and lose its gravitational pull. The earth will turn into a giant snowball and be hurled through space. When that happens it won't matter if I get this guy out.") Because of guys like us, lefties in sports traditionally have gotten a rep as being crafty, off-kilter, unorthodox, and kooky. But the thing is, you can't stereotype us. We're everyman.
We have The Kid (Teddy Williams) and The Man (Stan Musial). We come in second (Phil Mickelson) and we come in first (Bill Russell). We've won more than anyone (Lenny Wilkens) and we've lost more than anyone (Wilkens). We're Hall of Famers (Babe Ruth) and not-quite-Hall of Famers (Fred McGriff). We're bad sports (John McEnroe) and we're sportsmen (David Robinson). We're East Coast (Steve Carlton) and we're West Coast (Sandy Koufax).
We're tall (Bill Walton) and we're Tiny (Archibald). We're racist (Ty Cobb threw lefty) and we've experienced racism (Neon Deion Sanders). We were great (Mark Spitz) and we were supposed to be great (Harold Miner). We have one name (Pele) and fun names (Sadaharu Oh). Some of us, sadly, pass away before our time (Lou Gehrig). Others of us last forever (Jesse Orosco).
We're good presidents (Bill Clinton) and we're bad presidents (George H. W. Bush). We're October heroes (Reggie Jackson and Tom Glavine) and we have big ears (Ross Perot). We like drugs (Daryll Strawberry). And prostitutes (Strawberry). And more drugs (Strawberry). And maybe, just maybe, we can hope that we really did turn things around this time (Strawberry).
We wear skates (Bobby Orr) and we go barefoot (Jesus). (Just kidding - I think the right has pretty much claimed him. I was talking about Shoeless Joe Jackson, except when Ray Liotta played him righty in Field of Dreams.) We have Lefties (Grove, Gomez, O'Doul, Dreisell) and even a Whitey (Ford) - but no righties, of course. And we have mullets (Randy Johnson). And more mullets (John Kruk). And more mullets (virtually any lefty on the 1993 Phillies). Yikes.
Maybe my parents should have tied my hand behind my back.
