This past Thursday the Staten Island Yankees and Brooklyn Cyclones played a minor league baseball game that seemed pretty normal until the last at-bat. With two outs in the bottom of the ninth, Pat Venditte, an ambidextrous pitcher for the Yankees, faced Ralph Henriquez, a switch hitter for the Cyclones and all heck broke loose. Henriquez stood in the right handed batter’s box and Venditte was ready to pitch to him right handed. At this point Henriquez switched over to the left handed box and Venditte countered with changing his glove (it’s got 6 fingers & 2 webs) so he could pitch lefty. This happened a couple of times until the umpires stepped in and tried to figure the situation out.
Listed below are the rules that I researched using wiki.answers.com. You can also view a video of the full at bat by clicking on the link below that I found on MiLB.com. Enjoy!
Rules for the pitcher
The pitcher must indicate which hand he intended to use. The pitcher may change arms on the next hitter but must indicate the arm to be used. No warm-up pitches between the change of arms and if an arm is injured, the pitcher may change arms and the umpire must be notified of the injury. The injured arm cannot be used again in that game.
Rules for the hitter
Yes, the player may surely switch sides; he may do so as long as the pitcher is not in the “ready position” (see rule 6.06),and, shall be called out if the batter attempts to switch sides during the pitcher’s windup.(Incidentally, there has always been a popular myth in the baseball culture that a batter can only switch sides before there are two strikes. This is just a false statement).
I sent you the article on that, I was curious about the rules myself, & so were a few of my friends, thanks for clearing it up.
Love the website, Donnie
Clinton Twp, MI