Jim Abbott: Overcoming Obstacles
Jim Abbott: A story of achieving against all odds - by baseball writer Norman L. Macht
Jim Abbott was born on September 19, 1967, in Southfield, Michigan. His parents, who lived in nearby Flint, were both 19, just out of high school.
They had no warning that their baby would be anything but normal, so it came as a shock when they learned that he had no right hand, His arm ended in a small, loose flap of skin above where his wrist should have been.
A tiny nub of a finger dangled from the end of it.
Overcoming the Challenge
Jim’s parents, who both went on to earn college degrees, had a dilemma: should they be protective, coddle him because of the limitations of his “handicap,” or minimize it by urging him to deal with it in pursuing a normal life?
Wisely choosing the latter approach, they taught Jim that it was no big deal, just a challenge to overcome. And that’s what he did. Like most boys, he took to sports.
He learned to handle a baseball and glove by playing catch with his father, and developed a knack for slipping the ball out of his glove, dropping the glove, then throwing with his left hand.
When his Dad was working, he threw a ball against a brick wall while perching the glove on his right arm, then quickly slipping it onto his left hand to catch the rebounding ball.
“If there were times I got frustrated,” he said, “it was because I wasn’t doing something I knew I could do., not something I couldn’t do.”
Jim and his brother Chad, who was four years younger, put up a basketball hoop on their garage. They set up a makeshift batting cage in the backyard. Using a tennis ball and a tiny bat, they took batting practice. Jim gripped the bat with his left hand and steadied it with the end of his right arm.
Iconic pitcher Jim Abbott
When Jim decided he was ready to join the other kids in their sandlot games, he took a lot of the expected jeering and wisecracks about his deformity.
When he went home crying, his parents encouraged him and sent him back out the next day. Gradually, his ability to play any position silenced the heckling.
Flint is a blue-collar, industrial city, rabid rooters for all Detroit and Michigan sports teams, and supporters of youth sports programs.
Jim began with T-ball when he was six and progressed to the Midget League, whose motto was “Every Kid Can Play.” So Jim played. “Nobody ever suggested that I should sit and keep score,” he said. “If they had told me I couldn’t play, anywhere along the line, I probably would have stopped. But nobody ever discouraged me. That was the key.”
He pitched and played first base because “that’s where the action was.” By the age of 11, he was averaging 12 strikeouts in the five-inning games. When a ball was hit back to him, he dropped the glove, plucked the ball out of it and threw.
One observer said, “He does it all so quickly, he is amazing. You really don’t realize that he has only one hand.”
High School
Jim grew tall and stocky. At 16 he stood 6-foot-4 and weighed 175. In high school, batters challenged him by bunting on him.
A few succeeded by putting down perfect bunts that would have eluded any pitcher, but when Jim threw out five or six bunters in a row, that was the end of that.
He played some games in the outfield and even one at shortstop, He also played quarterback for Central High; his passing and punting led them to the state championship game, which they lost, 14-7.
By his senior year, he was throwing 90 mph and striking out almost every hitter.
At bat he rested the end of the bat on his right arm and gripped it in his left hand, generating enough power to hit .427 with 7 home runs and 10 stolen bases. Scouts were showing up at Central’s games, and Jim was getting national TV notice.
Scouts admired his fastball and toughness, but the doubts remained. After all, plenty of two-handed high school stars never made it to the big leagues. Could a one-handed pitcher make it?
University of Michigan
Toronto scout Don Welke saw a live fastball and a big heart and that was enough for him. The Blue Jays picked Abbott in the 36th round of the 1985 draft.
They offered him a $50,000 bonus, but his parents wanted him to go to college and he realized that anything could happen to shorten a baseball career. He turned down the offer and enrolled at the University of Michigan.
His success pitching for the Wolverines led to invitations to pitch in the Pan-American Games in 1987 (they finished second to Cuba) and the 1988 Olympics in South Korea, where Jim pitched the gold-winning victory over Japan.
Everywhere he went, he was the center of intense media attention, a hundred cameramen clicking away at every move he made on the field -- fielding, throwing, swinging a bat. His teammates, while awed by his agility, were happy to be ignored by the press and public.
It all earned him the Sullivan Award as the outstanding Amateur Athlete of 1988, the first baseball player to be so honored.
Accepting the award, he said, “I think they picked the worst athlete up here. . . My mom kept me from turning pro, and it is nights like tonight that make me glad I made that decision.”
After his third year at Michigan, Jim decided to leave school and enter the major league draft. The California Angels had shown the most interest in him during his college career, so he was not surprised when they picked him in the first round.
He signed a $200,000 minor league contract.
Hugh Daily
Jim Abbott was not the first one-handed pitcher in major league history, nor even the first to pitch a no-hitter. The first, Hugh Daily, had been active way back in the 1800s, when rules for pitchers were different and players didn’t wear gloves in the field.
And the “media” consisted of a few newspapers. But Jim didn’t aspire to be the next one-armed or one-handed or one-anything athlete. He wanted to be the next Nolan Ryan, period.
In the Spotlight
At first, other players stared at Jim’s agility with the glove, but the novelty quickly turned to acceptance, and he became just another rookie. And nobody envied him for the hordes of reporters and cameramen who followed the rookie everywhere.
His locker was overflowing with hundreds of letters. People with children who had similar physical problems showed up, asking to meet him. Jim never turned them down – never would, never has.
For his part, Jim was awed to be in a major league training camp with players like catcher Lance Parrish, whom the 12-year-old Jim had admired when Parrish played for the Detroit Tigers.
“I couldn’t believe it,” he said. “Lance Parrish . . . Dan Petry, my idol when I was a high school pitcher. Here I am in the same clubhouse with these guys, putting on my red shoes and my uniform.”
Smart enough to know that his fastball and slider were not enough for the big leagues, Abbott expected to start out in the minor leagues. But when Petry was sidelined by a sore shoulder, Angels’ manager Doug Rader and pitching coach Marcel Lachemann decided that Jim would open the season in Anaheim.
When the announcement was made, Jim received one message he treasured so much he displayed it in his home: a telegram of congratulations from Nolan Ryan.
It didn’t take long for Jim to realize he still had a lot to learn. He had a problem hiding his grip on the ball because he couldn’t conceal it in his glove until it left his hand. That also hampered his ability to hold men on first.
Major League Debut
He made his first start on April 8, 1989, against Seattle and lost, 7-0. Five days later he lost again, 5-0, in Oakland. Lesson No. 1: There’s no guarantee how many runs your own team will score for you.
He won his first game on April 24, against Baltimore at home, leaving after six innings with a 3-2 lead, which the bullpen saved.
Throughout his rookie year Abbott was besieged wherever he went by autograph seekers, phone calls at all hours, and letters and visits from parents with children who were coping with missing fingers or hands – while learning to become a big league pitcher.
He never turned anyone down, and worked 181 innings in 29 starts for a 12-12 record. In his second year, the Angels were still a .500 team and usually scored few runs in Abbott’s starts. He struggled to master a change-up and cut down on baserunners’ stolen bases.
Jim Abbott played for the California Angels, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox and Milawukee Brewers during his stellar career!
By his third year he improved to an 18-11 record and 2.85 ERA. But every game he pitched was a battle, not with the other team as much as with himself. He was a perfectionist, and everything he did that wasn’t perfect enraged him.
Weak hitting and fielding support made him press to pitch a shutout every time. When he was relieved while ahead and the bullpen failed to hold the lead, he began resisting coming out of a game, and worked 243 innings.
The Angels continued to slide in 1992; Abbott’s record fell to 7-15 despite a 2.77 ERA. After the season the Angels sought a long-term contract: four years for $16 million. Jim’s agent demanded $19 million.
The standoff lasted for months, until the Angels resolved it by trading him to the Yankees.
The Yankees
Jim, who had married a California girl, preferred to stay there, but the prospect of pitching for the pennant-contending Yankees was exciting – until he lost a salary arbitration hearing in which the club’s negative case against him left him wondering why they had traded for him.
The highlight of the year came on September 4, when he pitched a no-hitter against Cleveland in Yankee Stadium. But the Yankees then faded from the pennant race, prompting club owner George Steinbrenner to publicly blast the team, emphasizing his disappointment with Abbott and his 11-14 record in particular.
After a disappointing strike-shortened season in New York, the Yankees released him. He spent the next five years bouncing between the White Sox and Angels before ending his career with a short stint in Milwaukee in 1999, where he batted for the first time in the non-DH National League and had 2 hits and 3 RBI.
Jim Abbott’s final pitching record was 87-108, with a 4.25 era. And for all the concerns about his fielding ability, he made only 9 errors in 10 years. But the stats are not important.
What’s important is that he had the heart and guts and mental strength to overcome a seemingly impossible obstacle to fulfill a dream.
