A very random question

[DrungoHazewood]

Interesting. Had no idea that knuckleballs were that common in the past. Wonder why it became that you had to be a knuckler ot not. Another thing I rarely see if ever are submariner starters. I remember Chad Bradford and of course now see Darren O'Day with our O's but both those guys are relievers. A guy I kind of emulated as a lefty submariner was Brad Clontz with the Braves. One of those dime a dozen relievers but I kind of liked him because he was a sidearming lefty and a Virginia native. I imagine submarine starters don't exist because doing that 100 pitches a game is different than 10-20 with a reliever. I converted from sidearm to overhand when I became a starter because the coach though I'd throw my arm out doing that starting.

Carl Mays, the guy who killed Ray Chapman with a pitch, was a submarine starter. Not too many, if any, anymore probably because it's seen as gimmicky and gimmicks usually end up in the pen. With the exception of knuckleballers, who almost exclusively are starters, at least since the 60s. Submariners usually have a big platoon split, which probably leads most managers to avoid using them as starters.

I once saw Brad Clontz throw a complete game for Virginia Tech that the Hokies won something like 18-13. Clontz had to have thrown 175 or 200 pitches.

[Hallas]

Interesting. Had no idea that knuckleballs were that common in the past. Wonder why it became that you had to be a knuckler ot not. Another thing I rarely see if ever are submariner starters. I remember Chad Bradford and of course now see Darren O'Day with our O's but both those guys are relievers. A guy I kind of emulated as a lefty submariner was Brad Clontz with the Braves. One of those dime a dozen relievers but I kind of liked him because he was a sidearming lefty and a Virginia native. I imagine submarine starters don't exist because doing that 100 pitches a game is different than 10-20 with a reliever. I converted from sidearm to overhand when I became a starter because the coach though I'd throw my arm out doing that starting.

I think Byung-Hyun Kim started a few games before he decided to go back to Korea.

[CA-ORIOLE]

In 1972 Wilbur Wood threw 376 2/3 innings as a left-handed knuckleballer.

This list includes over 50 lefties who threw kucklers.

Wilbur Wood was one of my favorites as a kid. I watched him pitch both games of a double header against the Yankees around that time (I looked it up and it was 1973 when he won 24 and lost 20 that year). He lost both games.

[OFFNY]

.

A long time ago when I was reading Roger Angell's "The Summer Game," he said that during the 1969 season, it came out that the reason why Mets outfielder Cleon Jones batted righty and threw lefty was because when he was growing up and playing whiffel ball with his friends when he was a kid, the fence in left-field was much shorter than the one in right-field, hence the reason why he converted from his natural left-handedness to batting righty. That is how Jones wound up with the unusual combination of being a lefty fielder and a righty batter).

Also, I also read once that one of the reasons why players often bat lefty but field righty is that because the batter's box for the left-handed hitter is closer to first base than is the box for the right-handed batter ......... hence, it would make it more understandable why a natural righty would want to try batting lefty, and of course, by the same logic, there really wouldn't be a good reason for a person that is a natural lefty to want to become a righty batter.