A Southpaw’s Story

Ryan Ludwick’s dim chance at All-Star game history

The All-Star rosters will be announced Sunday, and St. Louis OF Ryan Ludwick will probably just miss his first selection. A promising talent taken in the 2nd round by Oakland in 1999, Ludwick fought injury and inconsistency bouncing from team to team until finding a home in St. Louis last season.

His story is sometimes lost among all of the reclamation stories on the Cardinals, and it seems he may remain the Gateway city’s favorite secret. All-Star game lore is full of these underdogs and comeback stories, and 2008 will have no shortage, but this is not what makes Ludwick unique. If by some longshot Ludwick sneaks on the team, he would only be the third position player in the history of the All-Star game to bat right-handed and throw left-handed. Rickey Henderson was the last, he totalled 10 appearences in the 80s and early 90s, and Cleon Jones appeared only one time for the 1969 Mets. The only other player currently in the majors who fits these criteria is Florida OF Cody Ross, and looking back in recent history the only players I could find were Damon Hollins, Jason Lane, David McCarty, Ross and Henderson.

This oddity may go unnoticed casually watching a game, but to a trained eye, it looks extremely odd on a roster. It is rare, and hard to imagine that noone tried to turn these supreme talents into switch-hitters as little leaguers. Southpaws are famously unorthodox, and often partially ambidextrous, but it would be interesting to know how these players ended up “backward baseball handed”. Are they even natural lefties? What else do they do left-handed? Were they once switch hitters who didn’t hit well left-handed?

Most of their opposites, players who hit left-handed and throw right-handed, are natural right handers taught to hit left-handed because they won’t see many left-handed pitchers growing up. Only 7-10% of men are left-handed, and 90% of those some coach has tried to make a pitcher. Like Bill Lee said, You probably didn’t know I have a super power . . . I’m left-handed (paraphrasing).

If you throw left-handed, and you’re not a pitcher your odds of making the next level diminish significantly, because there are only four positions you can play. If you also hit right-handed you lose the advantage with the majority right-handed pitchers. I wish I could come up with a way to make odds for a position player batting right-handed and throwing left-handed just making professional baseball, much less the major leagues and the All-Star team.

Looking at the rest of the NL, Ludwick does have an outside shot of getting a spot. It looks like the starting outfielders will be Alfonso Soriano and Kosuke Fukudome from Chicago and Cincinatti veteran Ken Griffey Jr. Soriano and Griffey don’t belong, and Fukudome’s numbers are similar with Ludwick’s. This leaves three outfield spots, and maybe a fourth for the DH position which the NL voters can’t vote for. Now bear with me, and you have to be creative, but assuming Ludwick gets the nod by Clint Hurdle over equally tantalizing teammate Rick Ankiel, and the Pirates get only one of their outfielders as their representative, and Milwaukee gets either Ryan Braun or Cory Hart, not both, and Adam Dunn is snubbed because of teammate Griffey being voted in, then this leaves only five other real possibilities for one or two spots, and all of them already have All-Star “locks” as teammates to be their team representative.

Nobody is going to choose them for their OPS or their Win Shares, but I added it for reference. However, win-loss record of their team is usually a very important factor for how many players will represent each team. Of course, a case can made for all of these players, and someone’s going to be left out, they always are.

Now, if Soriano’s still injured, and Holliday gets traded this weekend to the AL . . .