IMPORTANT: Defenses shifted against baseball-playing sixth-grader Donald Trump – CBSSports.com

The Washington Post has a lengthy batch of articles on presumptive Republican nominee for President, Donald Trump, as part of an upcoming book. All the links are on their site for those interested in what appears to be some incredibly in-depth work and involve lots of background on him.

For our purposes, though, we stay in our lane. This is a baseball blog and, hey, there’s baseball!

Specifically, defenses shifted against a sixth-grade Donald Trump:

By sixth grade, Donald’s power as a right-handed hitter was enough that fielders shifted to left field when he batted. “If he had hit the ball to right, he could’ve had a home run because no one was there,” said Nicholas Kass, a schoolmate. “But he always wanted to hit the ball through people. He wanted to overpower them.”

Let’s keep in mind that this was in the late 1950s and point out that it was hardly revolutionary. It’s becoming a pet peeve of mine that some people seem to think shifting is some silly sabermetric revolution invented by computer geeks when teams were employing it against Ted Williams in the ’40s.

Sorry. Didn’t mean to go all soap box.

Onward, there’s more on Trump. He was a catcher:

A catcher, Trump’s uniform was often the dirtiest on the field, and he shrugged off foul balls clanging off his mask. After once making an out, Donald smashed neighbor Jeff Bier’s Adirondack bat on the pavement. The bat cracked, Bier said, but Trump did not apologize.

That’s pretty run of the mill, as anyone who spends time around youth baseball knows, so we’ll wrap it up.

In conclusion, sixth graders shifted back in the late ’50s. It’s not a newfangled sabermetric thing.

Adjust your complaints accordingly. And make sure to stick to sports!