In baseball, a position player is a player who on defense plays as an infielder, outfielder, or catcher. This is generally all players on a team except for the pitcher, who is considered separate from the position players; in the American League, there is also a designated hitter, who bats but does not play any defensive positions (and is therefore not a position player). Position players are eligible to pitch, and a manager may have a player do so in the case of a blowout during a game, or if he runs out of eligible pitchers in a game, usually occurring when the game goes into many extra innings. However, this is rare.
The term is also used in hockey, to refer to all non-goaltender players, although skater is the more common term in hockey.
Famous quotes containing the words position and/or player:
“Being in a family is like being in a play. Each birth order position is like a different part in a play, with distinct and separate characteristics for each part. Therefore, if one sibling has already filled a part, such as the good child, other siblings may feel they have to find other parts to play, such as rebellious child, academic child, athletic child, social child, and so on.”
—Jane Nelson (20th century)
“Abused as we abuse it at present, dramatic art is in no sense cathartic; it is merely a form of emotional masturbation.... It is the rarest thing to find a player who has not had his character affected for the worse by the practice of his profession. Nobody can make a habit of self-exhibition, nobody can exploit his personality for the sake of exercising a kind of hypnotic power over others, and remain untouched by the process.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)