You may have already heard about Pat Venditte the Yankees switch pitcher or the ambidextrous pitcher. Here is a link to a story in newsday by Jim Baumbach. And here is his player Bio from Creighton.
Venditte was drafted by the New York Yankees out of Creighton in the 20th round of this years Amateur Draft. Venditte was quickly signed and made his debut for the Staten Island Yankees last night in the ninth inning and it resulted in some pretty amusing results.
Venditte, who uses a special glove that allows him to switch from lefty to righty pitcher at will, faced off against Ralph Henriquez of the Brooklyn Cyclones with two outs in the final inning. Problem is, Henriquez is a switch-hitter. And he kept moving back and forth between the righty and lefty batter’s boxes before one single pitch was thrown, and Venditte was forced to keep switching his glove hand in response. Check out a video of the game.
If I understand the rule right, this is actually illegal in professional baseball. Rule 6.02 of the official MLB rule book states:
"The batter leaves the batter’s box at the risk of having a strike delivered and called, unless he requests the umpire to call “Time.” The batter is not at liberty to step in and out of the batter’s box at will."
So this means that unless the batter is granted a timeout, once he steps into the box, the pitcher has the right to throw one pitch. However, last night, after a few switches in the batter’s boxes, Venditte became annoyed. A delay ensued as a result while all parties involved attempted to sort through the impasse. I don’t know what the umpires told Henriquez to do, but ultimately, he batted righty, Venditte pitched righty, and it all ended with a strikeout to finish the game.
