You’re not refuting it - you’re just not that familiar with baseball. See here for some background:
The main advantage to batting left (or switch-hitting, where the batter can hit either way depending on the pitcher he’s facing) comes from the fact that there are more right-handed pitchers than there are lefties.
ETA: yeah, what sparky said.
This is true in baseball also. For instance, Houston’s ballpark has its flagpole within the field of play, and if a ball hits it, play continues. I believe the old Yankee Stadium used to have its flagpole and some tombstones in centerfield also.
You can’t score if you can’t get on base. It’s one of the most critical elements of the game, but after one is on base handedness makes no difference. Aside from that left-handed hitters tend to have an advantage because most pitchers are right handed, and it is easier to hit a ball thrown by someone with the opposite hand. As a result there are more lefties in baseball than the proportion in the general population would suggest. For the same reasons, a left-handed pitcher can be objectively worse (less velocity, less movement on his pitches) and have a longer career than a objectively better right-hander because teams will employ them just to get a key left-handed batter out.
There are also a lot of other little quirks involving handedness in baseball - certain positions are almost never manned by left handers due to the kinds of throws that need to be made defensively.
Baseball is unique in another aspect (ok, perhaps it shares this with cricket, I’m not familiar enough with that sport to be certain) - it’s the only team sport I can think of that consists largely of a series of individual matchups. Pitchers versus batter, with no one else being able to affect this until the batter puts the ball in play.
I don’t really know how true this is. The time in the game, the score, and any runners on base all affect how aggressively the pitcher will go after a batter. A given pitcher might pitch very differently to the same batter in the first inning than he does in the sixth. For a more obvious effect, consider runners on base - they force a pitcher to go from a stretch rather than from a full windup.
Baseball might look like a series of individual matchups, but they’re all interconnected.
Its an advantage in Cricket as well to be a left hand bat, messes up the bowlers line; a good ball to a right hander is just asking to be hit if delivered to a lefty.
The OP asks for unique characters of various sports.
The issue is not my familiarity with baseball but your familiarity with other sports.
It’s not an issue of any advantage on handedness in baseball, it’s that the advantage isn’t unique
There are lots of other sports where dexterity confers advantages.
For example, in a similar vein to 1st base fielders esssentially being always left handed (or more correctly playing left handed) essentially all cricket wicket keepers are right handed, though they may bat, bowl and throw left handed.
Sparky’s primer is fine but the base point being made made, and with which I concur, is the principal advantage of left over right is there are more right than left.
Precisely the same advantage applies to any advantage with batters & bowlers in cricket. It is distinct, strategic but not quantifiable.
And where multiple teams compete against each other at the same time.
Cricket is the only sport where it having a tree in the playing field is allowed
It was quite a sight.
It’s a free base if you hit a batter, and it’s an out if a baserunner hits a fielder outside the basepath.
I’m not aware of any sport in which it’s a foul to throw a ball out of bounds. It’s not a foul in basketball. In football you don’t even lose possession.
It’s not a ball, but there are circumstances where shooting the puck over the glass in hockey will result in a delay-of-game penalty.
Ah, but this is another example of option: mixed doubles tennis obviously requires a man and a woman, but there are other versions of tennis which do not. There are no other versions of korfball but mixed-team.
That is the ideal curling surface. Without the pebbles, the stones wouldn’t curl (nearly as much) and would grind to a stop.
Isn’t a kickoff going out of bounds a penalty?
Deliberately shooting the puck out of the rink in hockey is a penalty.
I don’t know of any other sport besides baseball where a defender starts every play “out of bounds” (the catcher is in foul territory).
As for Duke’s comment about immovable objects that are in play, I wonder if the walls in baseball count. Or the backboard in basketball. I’m not sure about the ruling in football if the ball hits the cross bar or upright and bounces back into the field of play.
Tapioca Dextrin - How about the relay in track and field or swimming? There are multiple teams competing against each other at the same time as well.
The defensive team is definitely penalized for hitting a batter, since it puts him at first base.
Depending on how you define a “foul”, arguably throwing a pitch not in the strike zone is a foul, and that’s of obvious strategic value in baseball.
In soccer you can’t touch the ball with your hands, but you are allowed to have a throw in with your hands when the ball goes out of bounds. I always thought that was interesting.
On a similar note, are there any other sports in which a major play can be executed entirely out of bounds (pop out in foul territory)?
Theoretically, an entire tennis point could be played that way (after the serve, and of course the baseball pitch starts in bounds as well). Both players are standing out of bounds, and the ball not passing over the net. That would never happen in an actual match, however. Although it’s not uncommon for a point to be played with both players never entering the area of play. Come to think of it, that’s a counter-example to the ‘defending player begins out of bounds’ for the catcher.
Not really. Remember the server must stand “out of bounds” to serve. A fault where the serve lands just outside the bounds of the court is played “entirely out of bounds.”