I coached little league baseball for 9 years and if you were a lefty you got a lot of attention from me. I turned 3 lefties into real good pitchers over the years and two ended up getting full rides to college. There is nothing like a left handed pitcher in baseball. With enough time and instruction most lefties can be made into a pitcher. When they are young they seem to have so much more power than right handers. Top college coaches drool when they find a good left hander to recruit. What a terrible waste for a teacher to try to turn a kid into a right hander in school but they did.

Did you ever get Hacks in school? I did, it was 1952 in my Health class, back when schools were good. I and a friend of mine were grabassing around in class before our teacher got there. When Mr. Pfaff got there and caught us, he informed Kenny and myself that we each were going to get a hack in front of the class. Mr Pfaff first started on psychology, talking about his special paddle and how much it hurt. He indeed did have a special paddle. It was a wooden paddle about 4"-5" wide, 3/4" thick and 18"-24" long and narrowed down on one end for the handle. The most notable thing about it was the holes that were drilled in it and that he emphasized. He said those holes made the paddle have less wind resistance and therefore higher velocity. He said his unique scientific method caused more pain than a regular paddling. Here is the method he described. First his upward high velocity swing, because of the holes, caused the Butt to lift up at impact which was very painful, then Gravity stepped in and snapped the butt back down for the final impart of pain. The class (boys and girls) got a good laugh out of the whole thing, and it was very painful. For about 40 years I had the pencil lead mark in my forearm where Kenny stabbed me with his pencil, LOL.