Southpaw

Realizing that this refers to a left handed pitcher in baseball, can anyone confirm the origin? I believe I know what it is but I want to see if I get an independent concurrence before posting my opinion.

... Thanks

To minimize the handicap of having to squint into the sun, most baseball diamonds were laid out with the direction of pitcher to batter (note to UK: bowler to batsman) east to west. A left-handed pitcher, therefore had his throwing arm on the south side. Slangy newspaper writers shortened that to southpaw.

Interesting. The expression "southpaw" is well-known in the UK too, but almost exclusively used in the world of boxing. A southpaw fighter is also left-handed, and so leads with his right hand. I suppose the word migrated in the US from baseball over into boxing, and since we Brits know nothing about baseball, we waited until it had moved before adopting it.