‘Special’ Is Dirty Word for These 2 Competitors

Born without a right hand, he proved the naysayers wrong and has already won nine games as a major-league pitcher in this, his rookie season.

Mauled by a mountain lion near San Juan Capistrano at age 5, she is still struggling to overcome the partial paralysis and facial scarring that are remnants of the March 23, 1986, attack and hopes someday to become an eye doctor.

As far apart as they now stand in their aspirations, California Angels hurler Jim Abbott and El Toro schoolgirl Laura Small share several common traits: a gritty determination to conquer what others term disabilities and an intense desire not to be seen as special.

It was this bond of mutual understanding that brought the pair together through correspondence in June, when Laura, now 8, sent a handwritten note to her baseball hero, and he quickly reciprocated.

Joyner Replacement

“When I was 5,” Laura wrote in large, printed letters to the man who displaced Wally Joyner as her favorite ballplayer, “I got attacked by a mountain lion here in Orange conty. I can’t use my right hand and most of my right side is paralyzed.

“So, I think you’re a great baseball Player. My brother David is 12 and is in love with baseball. He will turn green if you write back. I want to become a doctor, and seeing you makes me think I can be what I want to be.”

The response came just days later.

“I remember hearing about your terrible accident from my home in Michigan,” Abbott wrote. “I can also recall hearing some tremendous stories of how you have handled things since.

“Believe me when I say it’s a tremendous privilege having someone look up to you at such a young age. You said in your letter you’d like to become a doctor. If you believe that now and work on it in the years to come, there’s no reason you can’t.

“I wanted to play baseball when I was growing up. The only people who may have doubted that possibility were those who couldn’t accept that my handicap was not a hindrance. Remember, our handicaps are only problems in the eyes of others.”

Abbott’s unexpected berth on the Angels’ pitching staff this year thrust him into the national media spotlight, in large part because of his physical condition. But he has shunned that attention, seeking scrutiny instead of his pitching abilities.

Quietly, Abbott has met and corresponded with handicapped children across the country who look to him for inspiration in breaking through what can appear to be insurmountable limits. It is a part of his life that he prefers not to discuss publicly.

Tim Mead, the Angels’ director of public relations, said: “It’s incredible the number of letters he gets from handicapped kids, easily over a hundred (this season). And he’s met with probably 45 or so of them when the team’s on the road.

“But he really wants to downplay it. He’s not doing it for the publicity. He’s doing it to help these kids.”

As eager as she is to meet Abbott in person, Laura said the words of his letter alone were enough to boost her occasionally sagging spirits.

“I think we have a lot in common,” she said at her El Toro home.

Laura said she felt bad for Abbott because of all the attention given in sports pages across the country to his physical condition and the unique way in which he throws the ball with his left hand, then quickly prepares to field by slipping his fingers into a glove tucked under his right arm.

‘I Really Understood’

“I really understood,” Laura said of the publicity.

Indeed, as difficult as some of the physical and legal challenges ahead appear, Laura and her family said it is her continual identification and scrutiny as “the little girl attacked by the mountain lion” that can be most frustrating for her.

Having gone through 13 operations in the last three years, Laura has made a remarkably speedy recovery since the attack, her parents said. Undergoing regular physical therapy, she now takes ballet classes, participates almost fully in physical education at school and sports a potent, one-handed swing at wiffleball.

The family also got a key legal boost in February when a Superior Court judge rejected the county’s claims of immunity and refused to throw out Laura’s lawsuit resulting from the lion attack at Ronald W. Caspers Wilderness Park.

The family will try to show that the county, which operates the park, failed to warn park-goers about the risk of wild animals and may have enhanced the danger through its own actions.

Tougher than these legal and physical struggles, however, may be the close attention that the attack has brought her, Laura said.

Well-Meaning People

Some schoolchildren tease her about her condition. Comments from well-meaning people drawing attention to the attack can upset her.

And she was vehemently opposed at first to the idea of talking to a reporter last week for yet another news account of her story. “I’m so tired of being special! I just want to be ordinary!” she screamed at her mother.

“It’s like Jim said,” Laura noted later, “you’re not really handicapped, but other people think you are.”