Why are left-handed people called "south paws"?

romeomikegolf

To minimize the handicap of having to squint into the sun, most baseball diamonds were laid out with the direction of pitcher to batter (note to UK: bowler to batsman) east to west. A left-handed pitcher, therefore had his throwing arm on the south side. Slangy newspaper writers shortened that to southpaw. Dec 17 05, 10:26 PM

JoshCaleb12

That explanation is considered a traditional one, with the notation that it is dubious, on the following website... http://www.answers.com/topic/baseball-slang Incidently, Wikipedia has exactly the same information with just a word or two changed here and there. Dec 17 05, 10:35 PM

Baloo55th

As it's the season of peace and goodwill, I won't remind RMG that people in the UK can understand most Americanisms but.... Dec 18 05, 3:03 PM

my_baby_love

Actually, I liked Rocky's explanation better. Dec 18 05, 4:45 PM

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