Watch right-handed Yankee pitcher David Robertson in the outfield shagging fly balls before every game, and there's a nagging feeling that something is not quite right. He runs for balls, tracks them down, then fires them back into the infield, looking perfectly natural.

It takes a little while before the revelation strikes—Robertson's glove is on the wrong hand. The natural righty is catching with his right hand and throwing with his left, as if he's done it that way his whole life.

"Every single day.'' Robertson said. "No one pays attention to it."

Until now, that is.

The Yankees' David Robertson is a right-handed reliever, but he can't help but envy ambidextrous Pat Venditte and his six-fingered glove. Getty Images

He isn't training for a career as an ambidextrous pitcher—he just likes the challenge. And he's getting pretty good at it.

"If I can do it with my right hand, I can do it with my left hand. Why not?" Robertson said with a shrug. "I'm pretty ambidextrous....I just can't write left-handed. That's my only problem."

Robertson started throwing lefty as a teenager, when his right shoulder was weak. He kept it up at the University of Alabama.

Now, he practices in the winter and shows off for his teammates—though he's never been clocked on a radar gun throwing lefty.

"I threw BP all offseason. It's not hard. It's just little flips," Robertson said.

He and lefty Yankee outfielder Brett Gardner have developed a partnership: Gardner gives Robertson his new left-handed gloves, and Robertson breaks them in through the daily batting practice sessions.

"He likes to break 'em in, and it's good for me because the gloves break in easier and quicker," Gardner said.

Robertson has no desire to be like Yankee farmhand Pat Venditte, a truly ambidextrous pitcher who throws righty or lefty depending on the game situation.

He did, however, trade Venditte for one of that unique pitcher's specially made six-fingered gloves this spring.

"I haven't brought it out yet—I just play around with it in here," Robertson said, showing off the strangely wide glove in the Yankees clubhouse. "I'm a little nervous to bring it out there. I don't want to catch a ball and hurt my hands or something.''

His efforts with his left arm make Robertson distinctive, but the versatility of his powerful right arm is what makes him so valuable to Yankee manager Joe Girardi.

Yankee farmhand Pat Venditte, is a truly ambidextrous pitcher who throws righty or lefty depending on the game situation. AP

"You can go back to what we saw in 2009 with this kid, being able to wiggle out of tough situations, being a strikeout pitcher, being able to throw anywhere from the 5th to the 9th inning," Girardi said. "There's a lot of different things you can do with a guy like David Robertson."

Since joining the Yankee bullpen in 2008, Robertson has posted ERAs of 3.30 in 2009 and 3.82 in 2010 with some of the league's best strikeout rates. The 26-year-old Alabaman is only getting better, Girardi said.

"I think his command has gotten better, his consistency has gotten better, and he knows that he can pitch at a very high level," Girardi said. "There's always that little bit of doubt when you come up…and now he knows he can be extremely successful."

So far this season, Robertson has thrown four scoreless innings and was instrumental in New York's win over Boston Saturday. Still, he doesn't get the same level of attention that his peers Mariano Rivera, Rafael Soriano and Joba Chamberlain do. That's fine with him.

"I like where I'm at. I just kind of slide under there. Just leave me there," he said.

During games, Robertson does his best to keep the entire bullpen group loose. In a group including the stately Rivera, the rough-and-tumble Chamberlain and the silent Soriano, Robertson is the one who provides the levity that gets them through the middle innings.

"He doesn't shut up about fishing and hunting. It's never anything baseball, it's just talking about what he wants to do," Chamberlain said. "It's actually awesome. It gets your mind off the game."

If there's a problem with Robertson's pitching, it's that he walks too many batters. But he shrugs that off—he can usually get out of those self-inflicted jams by notching a strikeout.

"I'm usually pitching pretty aggressively. I'm not skating around. I walk people, [but] it's not like I'm trying to," he said.

The same "aw-shucks'' attitude that Robertson takes to his pitching applies to his odd pursuits with his left arm.

Told that many other people can't just switch arms and throw the way he does, Robertson seems bewildered. He just can't fathom that something that comes so easily to him could be so hard for others.

"It's hard?'' he said with a grin. "Shouldn't be."