Jakubowski Shows Baseball Goes Beyond Stats

Baseball provides fans with the opportunity to evaluate players based on a series of statistical categories: you judge a player by his batting average, power numbers, fielding percentage and so on.

If someone was to evaluate Tom Jakubowski’s junior season at West Deptford High School, they would see a player who thrived in just about every area.

He hit .512 had eight home runs, stole 20 bases and had a .979 fielding percentage.

Yet sometimes statistics–even ones as gaudy as Jakubowski's–don’t tell the whole story. Saturday night, Jakubowski demonstrated that his impact goes beyond the box score, by performing a simple, yet rarely seen tactic.

With a runner on second base and no outs in the first inning, Jakubowski stepped to the plate, but did so in an unusual way. The lanky lefty took his stance on the opposite side of the plate and prepared to bat right-handed.

A few spectators in the crowd were caught off-guard at what they were seeing, and wondered aloud if Jakubowski simply wanted to try something new, or if he had intentions of becoming a switch-hitter.

In this instance, neither was the case. He was simply helping out a teammate.

On the first pitch thrown to Jakubowski, Joe Pinto broke for third and wound up stealing the base easily.

Before the next pitch, Jakubowski moved back to his original left-handed hitting stance and proceeded to drive Pinto in to score.

The purpose of Jakubowski’s move was simple. It is harder for a catcher to throw out a runner attempting to steal third when there is a right-hander hitter up than a left-handed hitter, simply due to vision. When a left-hander is up, the catcher has a clear view of the runner and third base, something that can’t be said when a right-hander is up.

The move certainly caught the Glassboro coaching staff unawares, as the head coach came out to argue that once Jakubowski had started his at-bat hitting on the left side of the plate, he had to stay there for its entirety. He left having lost the argument, but at least a little more informed.

The credit for the play goes not only to Jakubowski, but to Pinto and the West Deptford coaching staff. It was a call that was only going to be used on the first pitch, and can only be done a select amount of times before a team catches on. The window was small, and they cashed in on the opportunity.

In the long run, the play had little impact in a runaway 11-1 West Deptford win, but it once again pointed out that while baseball is a game with so many statistics, there is no way to put a value on intelligence and instincts.