Pat Venditte - The Amphibious Pitcher Who Changed the Rules of MLB Baseball
Now that Black Friday and Cyber Monday have come and gone, Moonlight Graham Show is getting in on the two-for-one deals. No, we aren’t talking about merch, although we have that too, we are talking about major league arm talent. Pat Venditte is the only true ambidextrous pitcher in MLB history.
Pat Venditte wasn’t born ambidextrous. His dad, a former college ball player, trained Pat to throw left-handed even though he was naturally a righty. The goal was to give him an advantage, but who could have known that one day Major League Baseball created the “Pat Venditte Rule” to address the unique challenge of a switch pitcher?
Having a big-league arm is rare. Just a fraction of a percentage of high school baseball players will ever get drafted. Only 1 in 5 players that get drafted make it to the big leagues. But Pat Venditte is the only player out of over 20,000 players to have appeared in the MLB that was ambidextrous.
Venditte had to work hard to train his left arm as a pitcher. He wasn’t an overpowering pitcher with either arm, but it was when he developed a sidearm slider with his left arm that was a real turning point. He was always a serious competitor and was focused on doing whatever it took to help his team win. It wasn’t until his college career that he started focusing on taking his game to the next level. After getting drafted in the 45th round in 2007, Pat decided to stay in school for his senior year. He was drafted again by the Yankees in the 20th round of the 2008 draft. Venditte spent over 10 years in professional baseball, playing for the A’s, Blue Jays, Mariners, Phillies, Dodgers, Giants, and Marlins.
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