DON’T SAY HANDICAPPED : Dan Siegler and Jim Abbott Each Has Something to Prove in Baseball

There were 46,846 curious people at Anaheim Stadium for the Angels’ first Saturday night home game. Their curiousity was understandable because pitcher Jim Abbott was about to make his major league debut.

One fan was not particularly curious, though maybe that was not quite so understandable.

His name was Dan Siegler. He just wanted to watch a ballgame, so much so that he turned down three dates to a Sadie Hawkins dance.

Abbott, as nearly everybody knows by now, has one hand. Siegler, a senior first baseman on the Fallbrook High School baseball team, also was born with one hand.

Minutes before the first pitch in Anaheim Stadium, Siegler watched photographers cluster around Abbott as he emerged from the dugout. And Siegler wondered aloud why people are always so curious. About Abbott. About him.

“I guess it’s hard to understand,” he said, watching Abbott warm up. “To me, it’s like, ‘What the hell. It’s the way I am.’ ”

Until this season, Siegler was just another high school kid playing ball. He was a starter for three seasons at Tustin High School in Orange County before he transferred to Fallbrook last fall.

Siegler obviously gets considerably less recognition than Abbott, but he has gotten some. After last season in Tustin, he received a call from a reporter in Orange County who wanted to do a story. Then, in San Diego, another reporter called. Then another.

Siegler finds the attention somewhat ironic. He has teammates going to Arizona State to play baseball. Nobody has been in touch with them about doing a story. Yet Siegler, who does not play a lot and whose competitive baseball career probably will end after this season, is creating something of a stir.

So as Abbott pitched, Siegler said several times to the reporter sitting next to him: “I think this is the last interview like this I’m going to do.”

Siegler doesn’t consider himself a good story. Or even a story at all. He’s just a guy who plays on a team. An average high school student who gets lazy now and then, isn’t afraid to put a cocky freshman in his place, likes teachers who encourage students to form their own opinions, tells an occasional joke and turns up the radio when a Guns and Roses song comes on.

The word handicap isn’t mentioned when Siegler is talking. He just lives and plays ball using the tools he was given. He has never spent time worrying about what he can and can’t do or what he might be able to do if things were different.

“No one has ever picked on me,” he says. “Probably because they don’t notice. Your friends aren’t going to rag on you. They don’t say, ‘This is my friend. He’s got only two fingers.’ ”

Siegler plays about the same way the left-handed Abbott does, in his case catching with his right hand and shifting his glove over when he throws. Because he has one finger and a thumb on his left hand, he uses it for support when he bats. And that’s that. It’s as natural for him as falling asleep.

“I’ve been asked the question if it’s tough or not,” he says. “I’d have to say, ‘No.’ It’s normal for me. I guess that’s why I don’t understand why people ask the questions they ask. I must be doing something different, but it’s not different for me.”

Siegler, 18, would just as soon not get any extra attention. If he were as good as Abbott, he would have to learn to cope with the constant clicking of cameras, the endless interviews and the same questions over and over. When Abbott trotted to the mound and photographers scrambled anywhere they could get a picture, Siegler slid to the edge of his seat and said: “That would bug me.”

Abbott is not Siegler’s hero. Never was. Siegler hasn’t followed Abbott’s career closely or tried to emulate his style of play. Siegler hadn’t even heard of Abbott until his father, Paul Siegler, told him there was a one-handed pitcher on the U.S. Olympic team.

“I don’t look up to Abbott,” says Siegler, matter of factly. “He’s just another player.”

Don’t get the wrong impression. Siegler credits Abbott for his success. But not for the same reason most people do. Siegler is impressed because Abbott is a major league player, the same way he is impressed with Don Mattingly or any other professional player. That Abbott has one hand is seemingly of little consequence.

And his observations at the ballpark support that. He doesn’t focus on Abbott. A foul ball gets ripped into the stands. Siegler smiles and shakes his head. “People are so crazy trying to catch that ball with their bare hands. Do they know how fast that thing is going?” A player’s batting average is flashed on the screen. “This guy’s batting 1.000. Probably one for one,” Siegler says, drawing a laugh from someone sitting behind him.

It’s fairly obvious, though, that Siegler is pulling for Abbott, just like everybody else. He’ll point out Abbott’s fastball has been clocked at 94 miles per hour, which, he says, is “good enough for the show here.” When Abbott departed in the fifth inning of a rather inauspicious debut, Siegler said: “I think he did pretty well for a first major league start. He did what a pitcher is supposed to do.”

The fans gave Abbott a standing ovation as he walked off the field. No one clapped louder than Siegler.

After Abbott had disappeared into the dugout, Siegler said: “(The fans) are wondering about how Abbott does. They have a right to be curious. Let them get their curiosity out of the way and look at him as a regular ballplayer.”

That’s the way Siegler wants it. Treat him the same as everybody else. His coach, Dan Heid, does. Siegler says he gets yelled at just like the rest of the players on the team.

Clearly, Siegler’s spot on the roster isn’t charity. He’s hitting .333, including a bases-loaded triple against El Camino. Heid says there’s no one with a dirtier uniform after practice.

“He has definitely earned his way on the team by being one of the 16 best players at Fallbrook High,” Heid said.

Siegler accepts his role. Winning, he says, can be just as satisfying from the bench. A win is a win. But there are trying times. The plays where it takes him a little too long to get the ball out of his glove and into his hand.

“When he messes up, he gets really frustrated,” said teammate John Clift, who once served up a home run ball to Siegler in Pony League. “He takes it pretty seriously.”

He always has. For that reason, his father used to encourage him to play soccer. He knew Dan would always drive himself to succeed and figured he wouldn’t be at a disadvantage on the soccer field.

“We tried to keep him away from (baseball),” Paul Siegler said. “We didn’t want to see him fail.”

But baseball was Siegler’s favorite. So he gave up soccer, stuck with baseball and made a go of it. Deep down, Paul says, Dan has something he wants to prove.

“I’ll do anything anybody else can do and I’ll do it just as well . . . or at least I’ll try,” says Dan, adding quickly, “I’m not trying to sound stuck on myself.”

He rarely does. Siegler doesn’t appear overly impressed with himself. He talks of being an average student and speaks highly of his younger brother Philip, who is a good baseball player and a good student. Siegler is outgoing and friendly, enjoys meeting people.

And he doesn’t really consider himself an inspiration for others with handicaps. That’s not because he doesn’t care. He once spent a week showing a kid who also had only one hand how to catch and throw a baseball. But when he plays, he just plays. Nothing more, nothing less.

“I don’t go up to bat thinking, ‘I have to do this to inspire somebody,’ ” he says. “I don’t want to sound like a bad person. I just want to play the game.”