Card #157 -- Denny Riddleberger, Cleveland Indians
1972 was Denny Riddleberger's only year with the Cleveland Indians. He spent part of 1973 in the minors but retired during the season. Originally signed by the Pirates in 1967, he came up with the Senators late in 1970 and pitched with them in 1971 as well. After the team moved to Texas, they traded him to Cleveland before he even would have had time to unpack.
There really isn't a lot of information about Denny Riddleberger to be found Online, so I'll talk about this little fact: though he was a left-handed pitcher, he batted righty. That is an interesting distinction...did he get forced to do that, or was it simply because he learned to bat the same way his friends did? I don't know, I'm just asking.
I'm a lefty that bats right handed, too. For me the turnaround was because I was the only southpaw in the family. Dad and everyone else batted from the right side, so I copied them.
ReplyDeleteFor many years I thought Riddleberger was on the mound in the Senators last game in Washington which was forfeited to the visiting Yankees. After looking it up it was Joe Grenzda on the mound.
ReplyDeleteRiddleberger had OK stats for a middle reliever playing on two bad teams. Surprized his career was so short.
I'm also a lefty that bats righty. Not sure why I batted that way, but I know from when I took archery in college that my dominant eye is not the one that most lefties have. I wondered if that was the reason I batted that way. I had a friend who threw right handed, batted right handed, but held his hockey stick lefty. I thought that was very odd.
ReplyDeleteRickey Henderson is left handed but batted righty because he saw everyone else batting that way, and thought the rules stated that batters had to bat righty.
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