Lefty Sullivan and the case for well-paid mediocrity

I know just the shear fact that I'm writing this down is going to jinx into not being true. Here goes anyways. I think Noah's left-handed. I don't want to break my credentials out but after 13 years of pediatric practice and being a medical expert on the upper extremity.............I really think he's left-handed.

If you don't know why this is a big deal to me, you haven't been listening the past few years. Although the world is made for right-handed people, being left-handed gets you one clear advantage. A mediocre left-handed reliever can make a good living in baseball. And by mediocre I mean-all things being equal between a right and left handed pitcher-the lefty will make more money. I have made a hundred jokes about tying Noah's right arm behind his back until he was 8. I didn't resort to that but it may have come true anyways.

The only reason I haven't declared him as a lefty yet, is because he still swaps hands a lot on fine motor tasks. Gross motor though the boy is going to shock me if he changes hands. Watching him hit a wiffle ball off the tee right vs. left is no contest. He's 10X's better from the left side. What has me convinced happened late yesterday afternoon. Jenna and I were planting in the front flower bed and the boy had had enough of us not playing with him. So he got out his golf clubs which is an instant Daddy-Pay-Attention-To-Me-Toy. He got a ball and put it on the practice mat (yes I have a practice mat). Typically I hold the club head behind the ball with the shaft where he's supposed to be and he'll walk up to it and get his grip right and then swing away. He'll hit 1/4 with the others hitting the ground about a foot behind the ball. He has a hitch on the downswing that looks like Charles Barkley (if you've never seen Charles Barkley hit a golf ball-I demand you go to YouTube right now). When he hits it I'll take the club and he'll run and get the ball and put it back on the mat. Rinse/repeat.

Yesterday was different. After about the fifth one. He said "No Dad, I'll hit over here." He walked around to the other side of the mat. I wasn't going to argue with him, so I jumped to the other side of the mat. He then preceded to hit 4 straight golf balls left-handed with the back of his right-handed clubs. Obviously they didn't go in the air but they went all the way across the yard. I had my back to Jenna so I just said "Are you watching this?" and she answered "Yes" in a bewildered-I can't believe I'm seeing this-voice. He hit every ball this way. He never whiffed and he didn't hit the ground. Every swing had some part of the clubhead hitting the ball.

So here I sit at 12:15 AM about 30 hours after all of this has set in. Figured I'd post this news on the blog since I couldn't sleep. I fixed some water, came to the living room, and sat down to tell you about all of this and to order left-handed clubs for my son from Golfsmith :)