Why do so many righthanders hit as a lefty?

In all honesty, my son bats left because in Tball I needed someone who can drive the ball deep to right field, and since I had no lefties I made my son learn how to bat from the left side from a very early age. I also had him model himself after the same player I did when I grew up ... George Brett. He was #5, I was #5, Son became #5, Brett played 3rd, I played 3rd, Son played 3rd. Brett bat left throw right, I did both right (was not good enough to figure out how to bat left on my own, LOL), Son bats left throws right. So those were the reasons that my son does it but the reasons you give I have heard many times also, but my sons reasons were much more innocent in intentions but I sure am glad I did it.

In my son's case it just happened naturally. He throws right, writes with his right hand, eats righty, plays paintball righty, but kicks with his left foot, and for some reason he has always naturally batted lefty (though he now switch hits as well). I can't explain why or how--it just kind of happened.

Interesting. I've got a righty thrower, lefty batter, lefty kicker also

I broke my Left wrist in HS and had to learn to switch over to get a better mechanical swing. In teaching my sons I had them mirror what I did, two oldest bat R youngest learned early to bat left mimicking me not mirroring. Now he can switch hit for average and power if there is such a thing for an 8 year old. LOL

I think that typically it is just taught. Many see advantages to being a lefty hitter (and there are some being a step or so closer to 1st, usually more right pitchers, etc.) and will move a kid to that side of the plate.

If your a natural righty thrower, you would typically/naturally be inclined to bat right with that dominant hand on top.

I was told, years ago, by a great hitting instructor that it is more natural for the strong hand to lead (bottom hand on the bat). Therefore, it is more natural for righties to bat left, lefties to bat right. My lefty son bats righty.

I think in most cases it is just what seems natural to the player. When my sons were about 3 we bought a small golf club called a tagalong. It was a right hand club for little kids. One of the boys would swing it right handed and the other would turn it upside down and swing from the left side. We would turn him around to swing right and he would stop and go back to the left side. He does everything right handed except golf and hit. RHP.

One other thing is I have noticed that you will see many more throw right/ hit left, than you will see throw left/hit right. Dont know why.

In my son's case, it is because when he was about 3 years old I got tired of pitching to him and his older brother all day long. He would throw the ball up with his right hand and to hit, he had to swing like a lefty . He now swings anything lefty (tennis, hockey, golf). I guess it is a good thing because I have been told a right handed catcher that hits left is a marketable player.

In reality the vast majority of right handers hit from the right side. I believe that the ones that hit from the left side do so because it just feels more natural to them. Now some are taught at an early age to hit from the left side or they are taught to switch hit. But I believe that for the most part it is because it just feels more natural to them at an early age and so they just hit from the leftside.

Both of my righty throwers bat lefty. I did not try to influence them, its the way they started up on their own.

My lefty thrower bats lefty as well, but writes with his right hand. Again, I let it happen on its own, exerting no influence on the process.

I think it's more a matter of what is comfortable for them as to which side develops first.

I have some really strange kids...three sons...one throws lefty, writes lefty, but bats righty....one is stricky right handed. My third son throws right handed, bats right handed, but when he writes, eats or anything else....left handed....He is a pitcher, and you don't know how many times he has been at the field and some coach sees him writing something and gets all freaked out because they can't believe that he writes with his left hand.

My younger son is like many of those described above: bats lefty and golfs lefty, but does most everything else righty including throwing and writing. When he was little, the baseball coach of every year's team would assume he was just confused, and move him to the "correct" side of the plate to bat, but he kept going back to batting lefty because it felt "right" to him.

If I could do it all over I would have had my son bat LH...His hips turn through and he uses his lower half better from LH. We started to late to hook up the hand to eye as good as RH and fellow coaches don't have any patience for working with it in organized practice.

My younger brother does everything right handed, but when he began playing baseball, he would always grip the bat cross-handed. My dad tried to change his grip. He never caught on to that, so dad just gave in and had him hit lefty. He felt comfortable that way. He also golfs right-handed, probably because right-handed clubs were all that were available around our house as kids.

My best friend from childhood throws lefty, but does everything else righty. Had a mean pickoff move, but then he needed it because a typical inning for him would be: single/picked-off, ground out, walk/picked off.

I think Smokey is right. A right handed person could exert more pulling force going from left to right (batting LH) than they could going right to left (batting RH) assuming the dominated side (right) is the stronger side. This post will eventually get into the mechanics of the swing and focus on which hand actually exerts more force on the bat. I personally think the bottom hand produces more force on the bat with the top hand having more control of the bathead. I wonder if the dominate eye factors into which way a batter feels more comfortable trying to hit a baseball.
Fungo

My son writes, eats and bats left handed.
Throws with his right hand. What ever works I guess.

i think a big reason is, as you said dutch coach, that dads teach their sons to bat lefty. my older brother, who is exceptionally fast, throws right but bats left because my dad taught him to do so. he always had a funny swing and many coaches have said that he is probably a natural righty hitter.

My oldest, who does most everything right-handed, had a terrible problem of stepping in the bucket as a young child. Nothing anyone tried worked. So, we turned him around. He never really liked it, but he got results.

He corrected the stepping in the bucket as he got older and hit mostly right-handed in high school and into college. But he gets off balance sometimes and said he wasn't seeing the ball well this spring. He started pulling off pitches and his coaches couldn't get a handle on it. The results were ugly.

So, he started switch hitting, again. He's still uncomfortable with it, frankly. He doesn't think his hands are quick enough. He has always had ridiculously quick hands as a righty, probably part of the problem in the first place.

But he has a really good left-handed swing, far better than his righty swing ever has been. He's about to find out just how good it is.

Officially, he'll go into fall practice as a switch hitter. But it wouldn't surprise me if he's solely a lefty come next spring.

I think it's a good thing to try young children from both sides, especially a righty to the left side. It's a matter of helping them discover how they feel comfortable and what they can do.

quote:

Originally posted by OldVaman:
...I think it's a good thing to try young children from both sides, especially a righty to the left side. It's a matter of helping them discover how they feel comfortable and what they can do.

I couldn't agree more. I throw right and hit right but I was born being slightly dominant on my left side. Of course for writing purposes my parents efforts paid out making me a right handed person. Still a couple of thinsg just feel better left handed or footed for the matter of fact (e.g. throwing frisbee, soc cer...)
My baseball coaches never supperted me in trying out my left side or working with it even though many players recognized my swing as being far more natural left handed.
I could have been a pretty good switch hitter because I simply love leftie pitchers.