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56-410: More hit balls go to the shortstop than to any other position, as there are more right-handed hitters in baseball than left-handed hitters, and most hitters have a tendency to pull the ball slightly. Like a second baseman , a shortstop must be agile, for example when performing a 4-6-3 double play . Also, like a third baseman , the shortstop fields balls hit to the left side of the infield , where

112-576: A fountain pen , preferred by many left-handers, nibs ground to optimise left-handed use (pushing rather than pulling across the paper) without scratching are available. McManus noted that, as the Industrial Revolution spread across Western Europe and the United States in the 19th century, workers needed to operate complex machines that were designed with right-handers in mind. This would have made left-handers more visible and at

168-436: A 12.3% incidence of left-handedness among men). Some studies examining the relationship between handedness and sexual orientation have reported that a disproportionate minority of homosexual people exhibit left-handedness, though findings are mixed. A 2001 study also found that people assigned male at birth whose gender identity did not align with their assigned sex, were more than twice as likely to be left-handed than

224-400: A Darwinian fitness challenge in ancestral populations, this indicates left-handedness may have previously been rarer than it currently is, due to natural selection. However, on average, left-handers have been found to have an advantage in fighting and competitive, interactive sports, which could have increased their reproductive success in ancestral populations. In a 2006 better correlate with

280-615: A child are left-handed, there is a 26% chance of that child being left-handed. A large study of twins from 25,732 families by Medland et al. (2006) indicates that the heritability of handedness is roughly 24%. Two theoretical single-gene models have been proposed to explain the patterns of inheritance of handedness, by Marian Annett of the University of Leicester , and by Chris McManus of UCL . However, growing evidence from linkage and genome-wide association studies suggests that genetic variance in handedness cannot be explained by

336-429: A clinical control group (19.5% vs. 8.3%, respectively). Paraphilias (atypical sexual interests) have also been linked to higher rates of left-handedness. A 2008 study analyzing the sexual fantasies of 200 males found "elevated paraphilic interests were correlated with elevated non-right handedness". Greater rates of left-handedness have also been documented among pedophiles . A 2014 study attempting to analyze

392-410: A difference in lateralization for writing between left-handers and right-handers. Researchers studied fetuses in utero and determined that handedness in the womb was a very accurate predictor of handedness after birth. In a 2013 study, 39% of infants (6 to 14 months) and 97% of toddlers (18 to 24 months) demonstrated a hand preference. Infants have been observed to fluctuate heavily when choosing

448-469: A fourth outfielder than an infielder, was also then called "short fielder" (a term still used in soft-pitch softball for the 10th player). With the advent of higher-quality baseballs, Adams moved to the infield, since the distance the balls could travel increased. However, Dickey Pearce , primarily of the Brooklyn Atlantics , is credited as the first to have played the shortstop position as it

504-475: A good hitter. Some of the weakest hitters in Major League Baseball have played the position, including Mario Mendoza , for whom George Brett popularized the eponymous Mendoza Line to describe a batting average below .200. Since the 1960s, however, such mediocre hitting has become rarer as teams increasingly demand players with ability to both field and hit. In practice, a marginal fielder as

560-505: A group differ from right-handers, and are more heterogeneous than right-handers, in perception of certain stereo illusions, such as the octave illusion , the scale illusion , and the glissando illusion . Studies have found a positive correlation between left-handedness and several specific physical and mental disorders and health problems, including: As handedness is a highly heritable trait associated with various medical conditions, and because many of these conditions could have presented

616-431: A group of left-handers, the overall effect is that left-handers show the same pattern of data as right-handers, but with a reduced asymmetry. This finding is likely due to the small proportion of left-handers who have atypical brain organisation. The majority of the evidence comes from literature assessing oral language production and comprehension. When it comes to writing, findings from recent studies were inconclusive for

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672-669: A hand to lead in grasping and object manipulation tasks, especially in one- versus two-handed grasping. Between 36 and 48 months, there is a significant decline in variability between handedness in one-handed grasping; it can be seen earlier in two-handed manipulation. Children of 18–36 months showed more hand preference when performing bi-manipulation tasks than with simple grasping. The decrease in handedness variability in children of 36–48 months may be attributable to preschool or kindergarten attendance due to increased single-hand activities such as writing and coloring. Scharoun and Bryden noted that right-handed preference increases with age up to

728-416: A key role for gene expression asymmetries related to handedness. One common handedness theory is the brain hemisphere division of labor. In most people, the left side of the brain controls speaking. The theory suggests it is more efficient for the brain to divide major tasks between the hemispheres—thus most people may use the non-speaking (right) hemisphere for perception and gross motor skills. As speech

784-407: A knife ground for use with the right hand are less convenient for left-handers. There is a multitude of examples: kitchen tools such as knives, corkscrews and scissors, garden tools , and so on. While not requiring a purpose-designed product, there are more appropriate ways for left-handers to tie shoelaces. There are companies that supply products designed specifically for left-handed use. One such

840-505: A larger one. Left-handedness is associated with better divergent thinking . Many tools and procedures are designed to facilitate use by right-handed people, often without realizing the difficulties incurred by the left-handed. John W. Santrock has written, "For centuries, left-handers have suffered unfair discrimination in a world designed for right-handers." Many products for left-handed use are made by specialist producers, although not available from normal suppliers. Items as simple as

896-451: A right handed preference developed in the human lineage is unknown, though it is known through various means that Neanderthals had a right-handedness bias like modern humans. Attempts to determine handedness of early humans by analysing the morphology of lithic artefacts have been found to be unreliable. There are several theories of how handedness develops. Handedness displays a complex inheritance pattern. For example, if both parents of

952-441: A serious accident than their right-handed counterparts. A high level of handedness (whether strongly favoring right or left) is associated with poorer episodic memory , and with poorer communication between brain hemispheres, which may give poorer emotional processing, although bilateral stimulation may reduce such effects. A high level of handedness is associated with a smaller corpus callosum whereas low handedness with

1008-509: A shortstop who hits well can be moved to almost any other position, especially second base or third base, whether early in their careers (examples: George Brett and Mike Schmidt were both tried early in their careers as shortstops) or later due to diminished fielding range , slower reflexes, weaker throwing arms, increased risk of injury, or co-existence with another dominant shortstop, as with Ernie Banks , Cal Ripken Jr. , Alex Rodríguez , Michael Young , or Miguel Tejada . The year in which

1064-430: A single genetic locus . From these studies, McManus et al. now conclude that handedness is polygenic and estimate that at least 40 loci contribute to the trait. Brandler et al. performed a genome-wide association study for a measure of relative hand skill and found that genes involved in the determination of left-right asymmetry in the body play a key role in handedness. Brandler and Paracchini suggest

1120-425: A slightly larger number of left-handers than right-handers are especially gifted in music and math. A study of musicians in professional orchestras found a significantly greater proportion of talented left-handers, even among those who played instruments that seem designed for right-handers, such as violins. Similarly, studies of adolescents who took tests to assess mathematical giftedness found many more left-handers in

1176-544: A strong arm is needed to throw out a batter-runner before they reach the safety of first base. Doc Adams of the Knickerbockers created the concept of the shortstop position, according to baseball historian John Thorn and Baseball Hall of Fame researcher Freddy Berowski. In the first five years the Knickerbockers played, the team fielded anywhere from eight to eleven players. The only infielders were

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1232-434: A strong throwing arm, because he has a relatively long throw to first base, and often has less time in which to make a throw, given that the ground balls he fields have often traveled relatively far. A shortstop must also be extremely agile, because balls hit to or near the shortstop position are usually hit harder than to other infield positions. Shortstops are required to cover second base in double play situations when

1288-455: A target in an area of an opponent's control, as their opponents are more accustomed to the right-handed majority. As a result, they are over-represented in baseball , tennis , fencing , cricket , boxing , and mixed martial arts . Handedness may be measured behaviourally (performance measures) or through questionnaires (preference measures). The Edinburgh Handedness Inventory has been used since 1971 but contains some dated questions and

1344-528: A toddler. Children who became lateral later than infancy (i.e., when they were toddlers) showed normal development of language and had typical language scores. The researchers used Bayley scales of infant and toddler development to assess the subjects. In two studies, Diana Deutsch found that left-handers, particularly those with mixed-hand preference, performed significantly better than right-handers in musical memory tasks. There are also handedness differences in perception of musical patterns. Left-handers as

1400-629: A way that increases their range of abilities, and that the genes that determine left-handedness also govern development of the brain's language centers. Writing in Scientific American , he states: Studies in the U.K., U.S. and Australia have revealed that left-handed people differ from right-handers by only one IQ point, which is not noteworthy ... Left-handers' brains are structured differently from right-handers' in ways that can allow them to process language, spatial relations and emotions in more diverse and potentially creative ways. Also,

1456-438: A weak association between ultrasound screening (sonography used to check the healthy development of the fetus and mother) and left-handedness. Twin studies indicate that genetic factors explain 25% of the variance in handedness, and environmental factors the remaining 75%. While the molecular basis of handedness epigenetics is largely unclear, Ocklenburg et al. (2017) found that asymmetric methylation of CpG sites plays

1512-484: Is Anything Left-Handed, which in 1967 opened a shop in Soho, London; the shop closed in 2006, but the company continues to supply left-handed products worldwide by mail order. Writing from left to right as in many languages, in particular, with the left hand covers and tends to smear (depending upon ink drying) what was just written. Left-handed writers have developed various ways of holding a pen for best results. For using

1568-410: Is a very complex motor control task, the specialised fine motor areas controlling speech are most efficiently used to also control fine motor movement in the dominant hand. As the right hand is controlled by the left hemisphere (and the left hand is controlled by the right hemisphere) most people are, therefore right-handed. The theory depends on left-handed people having a reversed organisation. However,

1624-540: Is called the non-dominant hand . In a study from 1975 on 7,688 children in US grades 1–6, left handers comprised 9.6% of the sample, with 10.5% of male children and 8.7% of female children being left-handed. Overall, around 90% of people are right-handed. Handedness is often defined by one's writing hand, as it is fairly common for people to prefer to do a particular task with a particular hand. There are people with true ambidexterity (equal preference of either hand), but it

1680-534: Is hard to score. Revisions have been published by Veale and by Williams. The longer Waterloo Handedness Questionnaire is not widely accessible. More recently, the Flinders Handedness Survey (FLANDERS) has been developed. Some non-human primates have a preferred hand for tasks, but they do not display a strong right-biased preference like modern humans, with individuals equally split between right-handed and left-handed preferences. When exactly

1736-544: Is played now. Adams had a long playing career with the Knickerbockers: he remained a player with the team until 1860. Unlike the pitcher and catcher , who must start every play in a designated area (the pitcher must be on the pitcher's mound , with one foot in contact with the pitcher's rubber , and the catcher must be behind home plate in the catcher's box ) the shortstop and the other fielders can vary their positioning in response to what they anticipate will be

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1792-554: Is rare—most people prefer using one hand for most purposes. Most of the current research suggests that left-handedness has an epigenetic marker—a combination of genetics, biology and the environment. Because the vast majority of the population is right-handed, many devices are designed for use by right-handed people, making their use by left-handed people more difficult. In many countries, left-handed people are or were required to write with their right hands. However, left-handed people have an advantage in sports that involve aiming at

1848-610: The National Bureau of Economic Research , Harvard economist Joshua Goodman finds that left-handed people earn 10 to 12 percent less over the course of their lives than right-handed people. Goodman attributes this disparity to higher rates of emotional and behavioral problems in left-handed people. Interactive sports such as table tennis, badminton and cricket have an overrepresentation of left-handedness, while non-interactive sports such as swimming show no overrepresentation. Smaller physical distance between participants increases

1904-400: The actions of the batter and runner(s) once the play begins. The shortstop ordinarily is positioned near second base on the third-base side. Because right-handed hitters tend to hit the ball more toward third base, a shortstop will generally move closer to third base if the batter is batting right-handed, and more toward first base if the batter is batting left-handed. A shortstop typically has

1960-407: The advantage left-handers usually hold in one-on-one situations: One advantage is a left-handed catcher's ability to frame a right-handed pitcher's breaking balls. A right-handed catcher catches a right-hander's breaking ball across his body, with his glove moving out of the strike zone. A left-handed catcher would be able to catch the pitch moving into the strike zone and create a better target for

2016-407: The article they assessed 38 infants and followed them through to 12 months and then again once they became toddlers from 18 to 24 months. They discovered that when a child developed a consistent use of their right or left hand during infancy (such as using the right hand to put the pacifier back in, or grasping random objects with the left hand), they were more likely to have superior language skills as

2072-415: The ball is hit to the second baseman or first baseman. They also cover second when a runner is attempting a stolen base , but only when a left-handed hitter is batting because the infield will respond to a left-handed batter by shifting toward first base, resulting in the shortstop being the infielder who is closest to second base. Shortstops also must cover third at various times, including the rotation play;

2128-448: The biological markers of asexuality asserts that non-sexual men and women were 2.4 and 2.5 times, respectively, more likely to be left-handed than their heterosexual counterparts. A study at Durham University —which examined mortality data for cricketers whose handedness was a matter of public record—found that left-handed men were almost twice as likely to die in war as their right-handed contemporaries. The study theorised that this

2184-421: The clinical control group. Diethylstilbestrol animal studies "suggest that estrogen affects the developing brain, including the part that governs sexual behavior and right and left dominance". Another theory is that ultrasound may sometimes affect the brains of unborn children, causing higher rates of left-handedness in children whose mothers receive ultrasound during pregnancy. Research suggests there may be

2240-431: The cutoff man on balls to any part of the outfield that are being directed towards third base and all balls to left and center field that are destined for second base. Depending on the system the shortstop may cut balls from left field heading home; however, this is usually the job of the third baseman. The emphasis on defense makes the position unusually difficult to fill. Historically, a strong shortstop did not have to be

2296-405: The lateralization for writing compared to the other measures of study, researchers from Lafayette College and Johns Hopkins University concluded that there was no statistically significant correlation between handedness and earnings for the general population, but among college-educated people, left-handers earned 10 to 15% more than their right-handed counterparts. In a 2014 study published by

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2352-443: The latter occurs when there are runners on first and second and a sacrifice bunt is attempted toward third base, requiring the third baseman to move in away from third base in order to field it. Shortstops generally are given precedence on catching pop-ups in the infield as well, so they end up calling off other players many times, although on deep pop-ups they generally fall back when called off by an outfielder . They often become

2408-587: The majority of left-handers have been found to have left-hemisphere language dominance—just like right-handers. Only around 30% of left-handers are not left-hemisphere dominant for language. Some of those have reversed brain organisation, where the verbal processing takes place in the right-hemisphere and visuospatial processing is dominant to the left hemisphere. Others have more ambiguous bilateral organisation, where both hemispheres do parts of typically lateralised functions. When tasks designed to investigate lateralisation (preference for handedness) are averaged across

2464-446: The members of Mensa are lefthanded, double the proportion in most general populations". Ghayas & Adil (2007) found that left-handers were significantly more likely to perform better on intelligence tests than right-handers and that right-handers also took more time to complete the tests. In a systematic review and meta-analysis, Ntolka & Papadatou-Pastou (2018) found that right-handers had higher IQ scores, but that difference

2520-436: The overrepresentation. In fencing , about half the participants are left-handed. In tennis, 40% of the seeded players are left-handed. The term southpaw is sometimes used to refer to a left-handed individual, especially in baseball and boxing . Some studies suggest that right handed male athletes tend to be statistically taller and heavier than left handed ones. Other, sports-specific factors may increase or decrease

2576-457: The phrase "left-handed": clumsy, awkward, unlucky, insincere, sinister, malicious, and so on. A "left-handed compliment" is one that has two meanings, one of which is unflattering to the recipient. In French, gauche means both "left" and "awkward" or "clumsy", while droit(e) ( cognate to English direct and related to "adroit") means both "right" and "straight", as well as "law" and the legal sense of "right". The name "Dexter" derives from

2632-421: The player was inducted is given in brackets after his name. Source: (does not list teams) Source: baseballreference.com Right-handedness In human biology , handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand , known as the dominant hand , due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous . The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subjectively preferred,

2688-410: The players covering each of the bases; if there were more than eight players, extra outfielders were sometimes used. The outfielders had difficulty throwing baseballs into the infield because of the balls' light weight. Adams's shortstop position, which he started playing at some time from 1849 to 1850, was used to field throws from the outfielders and throw to the three infielders. The position, more of

2744-437: The population. Left-handers are overrepresented among those with lower cognitive skills and mental impairments, with those with intellectual disability being roughly twice as likely to be left-handed, as well as generally lower cognitive and non-cognitive abilities amongst left-handed children. Left-handers are nevertheless also overrepresented in high IQ societies, such as Mensa . A 2005 study found that "approximately 20% of

2800-662: The same mechanisms that determine left-right asymmetry in the body (e.g. nodal signaling and ciliogenesis ) also play a role in the development of brain asymmetry (handedness being a reflection of brain asymmetry for motor function). In 2019, Wiberg et al. performed a genome-wide association study and found that handedness was significantly associated with four loci, three of them in genes encoding proteins involved in brain development. Four studies have indicated that individuals who have had in-utero exposure to diethylstilbestrol (a synthetic estrogen based medication used between 1940 and 1971) were more likely to be left-handed over

2856-447: The same time appear less capable and more clumsy. Writing left-handed with a dip pen, in particular, was prone to blots and smearing. Moreover, apart from inconvenience, left-handed people have historically been considered unlucky or even malicious for their difference by the right-handed majority. In many languages, including English, the word for the direction "right" also means "correct" or "proper". Throughout history, being left-handed

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2912-424: The teenage years. The modern turn in handedness research has been towards emphasizing degree rather than direction of handedness as a critical variable. In his book Right-Hand, Left-Hand , Chris McManus of University College London argues that the proportion of left-handers is increasing, and that an above-average quota of high achievers have been left-handed. He says that left-handers' brains are structured in

2968-457: The umpire. According to a meta-analysis of 144 studies, totaling 1,787,629 participants, the best estimate for the male to female odds ratio was 1.23, indicating that men are 23% more likely to be left-handed. For example, if the incidence of female left-handedness was 10%, then the incidence of male left-handedness would be approximately 12% (10% incidence of left-handedness among women multiplied by an odds ratio of 1:1.23 for women:men results in

3024-423: Was because weapons and other equipment was designed for the right-handed. "I can sympathise with all those left-handed cricketers who have gone to an early grave trying desperately to shoot straight with a right-handed Lee Enfield .303", wrote a journalist reviewing the study in the cricket press. The findings echo those of previous American studies, which found that left-handed US sailors were 34% more likely to have

3080-518: Was considered negative, or evil. The Latin adjective sinister means "left" as well as "unlucky", and this double meaning survives in European derivatives of Latin, including the English words "sinister" (meaning both 'evil' and 'on the bearer's left on a coat of arms') and "ambisinister" meaning 'awkward or clumsy with both or either hand'. There are many negative connotations associated with

3136-719: Was negligible (about 1.5 points). The prevalence of difficulties in left-right discrimination was investigated in a cohort of 2,720 adult members of Mensa and Intertel by Storfer. According to the study, 7.2% of the men and 18.8% of the women evaluated their left-right directional sense as poor or below average; moreover participants who were relatively ambidextrous experienced problems more frequently than did those who were more strongly left- or right-handed. The study also revealed an effect of age, with younger participants reporting more problems. Nelson, Campbell, and Michel studied infants and whether developing handedness during infancy correlated with language abilities in toddlers. In

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