When I was a kid I thought that the batter would run to the nearest base: lefty to first and righty to third. Makes sense. Otherwise, baseball would be lopsided, asymmetrical. My kiddie brain did not like that and assumed that the rules would be fair.
Add this to the illogic of baseball. Baseball absurdities are so ingrained and baseball fans so unimaginative in their thinking that such thoughts never cross their minds. Why do some batters have such a big advantage? Lefties start about two steps closer to the first base than righties. How is that a level playing field, the one that steroid zealots are constantly babbling about?
There were/are three basic ways to fix this:
1. The batter runs to the nearest base. What to do about base runners? Switch their relative position before each batter. Oh, wait, that would slow down the game. Yeah right, like anyone would notice. No, of course, it would not slow down anything except the decay of baseball minds.
2. Only have righty batters. Why did baseball allow lefty batting in the first place. Seriously, does anyone know? Has anyone ever thought about it? Anyone? Thought?
3. Move first base back when lefties bat.
Oh, wait, it's part of baseball's charm, the last refuge of the unimaginative baseball mind. You know, like the non-uniform playing areas in which one fly ball can travel 50% farther than another and the longer is an out and the shorter is a home run. And compound that with modern smart baseball thought classifying home runs as non-random events, beyond the control of the pitcher in computing fielding dependent averages.
Charming. Like lefty batters.
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