The Man With Two Arms

Look closely at this photo…

(AP Photo/Charlie Riedel) In this photo combo, New York Yankees pitcher Pat Venditte, left,throws right-handed, and at right, throws left-handed during the sixth inning of a spring training baseball game against the Atlanta Braves Tuesday, March 30, 2010 in Kissimmee, Fla. Ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte threw with both arms for the Yankees on Tuesday, giving up one run in 1 one-thrid innings during a 9-6 split-squad loss to the Braves.

Mind boggling

At first glimpse, you may think “So it’s a combined photo of a guy throwing left-handed and another guy throwing right-handed.” But I said look closely… The “guy” is the same in both shots.

His name is Pat Venditte, a pitching prospect in the New York Yankees’ organization. In Tuesday’s preseason game against the Atlanta Braves, the ambidextrous pitcher made an appearance that very few people can say they have seen in their lifetime. Only one ambidextrous pitcher has thrown with both arms in a modern era regular season game — Montreal’s Greg Harris in September of 1995. Five different ambidextrous pitchers threw for teams in the 19th century.

It doesn’t look like the 24-year-old pitcher from Creighton will see any time in the bigs soon, as he pitched in A and A+ ball in 2009 and will look to climb to Yankees’ AA affiliate Trenton Thunder this season. But I can’t wait for the day that this pitcher does make it to the major league, and will be interested to see how the Yankees utilize this pitcher with two arms. (Dare they pitch him in back-to-back days, one day as a lefty, the other as a righty? That would be pretty amazing.)

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