Waiting for Venditte

Sheer velocity isn’t everything | Marvin Olasky

Mike Janes/Cal Sport Media via Four Seam Images/Newscom

Last month, after hearing major league outfielder Manny Ramirez (who has received $20 million each year for the past eight years) complain that he felt like a slave, it was time to go to a minor league game where players are paid perhaps $850 per month and are eager to play.

So Susan and I took the Staten Island ferry across New York Harbor to a new 7,000-seat ballpark where the Manhattan skyline glistens behind centerfield, where a family of four can pay $30 for four tickets, four baseball caps, and four Wendy's combo meals—and where the closer for the hometown team throws both right-handed and left-handed.

What?

Enter Pat Venditte, a 23-year-old from Omaha with 20 years of ambidexterity in his resumé. When Pat was 3, his dad started training him to throw with both arms. Again. Again. Again. Using a symmetrical glove (two thumbholes, four finger holes) that he can readily slip on either hand, Venditte threw from both sides in high school and at Creighton University.