Ambidextrous means the ability to perform any task equally well with either hand.
This describes Cedar Springs freshman baseball player Walker Glyshaw.
"I write with both my hands," Glyshaw said. "I write faster with my right hand but I write better with my left hand, I guess I prefer writing left-handed."
"I also eat with both hands. I don't know, whichever one I hold the bowl with the other one is scooping the food."
Glyshaw does it in baseball too, he's a switch-hitter at the plate, and a switch-pitcher on the mound.
"From an early age I remember throwing in the yard with my dad just developing with both hands," Glyshaw recalled. "I remember throwing right-handed and throwing a little left-handed too just having fun with it."
He has a special glove that he can wear on either hand.
When he is on the mound he must declare which hand he will throw with prior to each new hitter.
"He is developing pretty well both ways," Cedar Springs head coach and Walker's father Justin Glyshaw said. "When he was 10 or 11 it was pretty clear that right was a little bit better than left, but he is refusing to give it up. He is a little bit faster right than left, his curveball is about the same both ways, good change up both ways. He is low-80s (mph) right-handed, mid-70s left, but it is effective, even at the varsity level this year it has been effective."
It is entertaining too.
"We kind of have fun on the mound," Walker said. "Striking kids out both ways is fun, the team gets a good reaction out of it. Other teams, normally it is a lot of oohs and ahhs seeing me throw with both hands because they don't see it very often."
"Every time you see it for the first time, everybody kind of does a double take and wants to see more of it," Justin added.
Being a switch-pitcher takes a lot of extra work.
Instead of throwing one bullpen, Walker throws two, one with each arm.
He plans to stick with it and hopes to play beyond high school as a switch-pitcher.
"I could never pick," Walker said. "It is just part of me, I guess. I always will do it."
