Switch Hitter vs Switch Pitcher Paul Richards in 1928

Ambidextrous Paul
by Eddie Evin, Jr.
The Index-Journal (Greenwood, South Carolina), 15 Jun 1954

Paul Richards, manager of the Chicago White Sox of the American League, is definitely after the world's championship this year and will say so at the slightest mention of a flag. ...

All his pitchers are identified on the roster as either right-handers or left-handers. None, it is safe to assume is ambidextrous the way a certain Paul Rapier Richards had bee in his youth.

"Oh, that," he says with a chuckle. This seemed as good a spot as any to pin down that monstrous fable Legend had it that Richards, a switch pitcher, had matched wits with a switch hitter. So tenuous was this tale that one version gave the locale as Waxahatchie High in a Texas schoolboy game and the other as with Muskogee in the old Western Association.

"Both versions are correct." drawled Paul, his brown eyes twinkling. "It happened first at Waxahatchie but no one ever heard of it until after I'd done the same thing at Muskogee in 1928. We were playing Topeka that day and I pitched right-handed to the rightie hitters and left-handed to the lefties. Then Eddie Dyer, the Topeka manager, sent up Charlie Wilson, a switch hitter."

Read More

Found on Newspapers.com

Paul Richards - Ambidextrous Pitcher (Altoona Tribune, 26 July 1928)

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