Ambidextrous athletes - Cryolemon's Blog

Cryolemon's Blog

Ambidextrous athletes

Posted on January 28, 2009 at 07:28 AM.

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This will be a fairly short post, partly because I'm posting it from college, and partly because there's only 2 people I can really talk about. For the purposes of this, I'm ignoring Switch hitting in baseball because compared to these 2 it's fairly common (although hitting a home run from both sides of the plate in one game is one hell of a feat).

Ronnie O'sullivan - Snooker
He is one of the only snooker players who can play consistently well both both hands. In 1995, when he first did it, his opponent complained that he was being unsporting, so O'Sullivan was asked to play 3 frames left handed against a former world championship finalist. He won 3-0.

Pat Venditte - Relief Pitcher - Minor League Baseball
One of the most interesting athletes ever, at least for a guy who like odd things like I do... He was drafted by the Yankees fairly late in the 2008 draft and pitched for Staten Island in the NYPL in 2008. He is in this post, of course, because he can pitch effectively with both hands. Right handed he throws a fastaball and a curveball, left handed he throws a slower fastball and a slider. In his first game he faced a switch hitter, which caused some controversy and became a video hit when they both kept swapping sides until the umpire intervened. The rules have since been changed so the pitcher has to decide which hand to use first. He finished the season with a NYPL leading 23 saves. I'll be interested in following his career, and I hope he's in AA at least this year, and obviously, I hope he carries on switch pitching.

One last note as to why these kind of things interest me is that I play darts with both hands. Apparently there was a pro darts player who did this a few years ago, but I can't find anything about it.

Edit, this blog is the first google entry for "Ambidextrous darts player" lol