09 April 2009

larry haney could have been a trailblazer

i was on a team in babe ruth with a left-handed catcher. he was really good - probably the best player on the team. it's just too bad that larry haney didn't succeed in becoming the first left-handed major league catcher.if he had, maybe my friend would not have been subjected to such discrimination and eventually forced to find a different, more 'conventional' position to play.

what's that? haney was a righty? it says so on the back. a closer look reveals this to be a reversed negative (see the uniform number on the back of what could be roger nelson). it wasn't topps' first reversed negative (hank aaron), and certainly not their last (aj hinch).

maybe topps was just trying to summarize the pilots in a visual way. who knows.

2 comments:

  1. Jack Clements caught over 1000 games as a lefty. The last guy was a guy in Pittsburgh in '89.

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  2. The Topps 1968 card of Haney was the same picture facing the correct way. Apparently Larry Haney is ambidextrous!

    Take a look here

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