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:
“When you give power to an executive you do not know who will be filling that position when the time of crisis comes.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)
“Intelligence and war are games, perhaps the only meaningful games left. If any player becomes too proficient, the game is threatened with termination.”
—William Burroughs (b. 1914)