Benny Distefano and the history of left handed throwing catchers

    In 1989, Benny Distefano, an outfielder/ 1B for the Pittsburgh Pirates, appeared behind the plate as a catcher. It would not have been such a strange occurance, but for the fact that Benny threw with his left hand. OF Pete Gray played missing an arm and Jim Abbott played without a hand, but nothing seems weirder than a left hand throwing catcher. In fact, that had only been done a few times prior. In addition to Distefano's three games there, 1B Mike Squires had done so for the White Sox in 1980, 9 years before Benny did. Prior to that Dale Long had done so for the 1958 Chicago Cubs.
    While it is something that may never be seen again, it has been done a number of times by a number of different catchers. The following link shows every left hand throwing catcher in the history of MLB.

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LIST OF ALL LEFT HAND THROWING CATCHERS IN MLB HISTORY

    Distefano, in additon to his catching accomplishment, something that has not been done since, had a tough going of it in the big leagues despite being a top prospect. The left handed hitter made his debut for the Pirates in 1984 and played in 45 games backing up 1B Jason Thompson (.274, 17, 74). He made it back to the show in 1986, but only played 31 games as Sid Bream had taken over at that time (.268, 16, 77). After backing up Bream  (.268, 10, 65) in 1988 and Gary Redus (.283, 6, 33) in 1989, Distefano took his talents to Japan.
    Benny would return to the US in 1991, having a breakout season for the Baltimore Orioles AAA affiliate Rochester. He hit .267, 18, 83 in 124 games playing mostly 1B. However, that was not good enough to warrant even a September call up. The next season he was in the Astros organization where he batted 66 times for the big club. His chance to play 1B was blocked by a young player named Jeff Bagwell. After that season, he struggled in AAA for Texas before calling it a career at age 31.