Abbott Goes to Work in a Pin-Striped Suit

Jim Abbott leaves for camp a week from today. He is a New York Yankee now. He will be issued his new uniform in Florida next week. He intends to wear it with pride.

“What number will you wear?” I ask.

“I thought I’d be 3,” he says.

OK, OK. That’s what I get for playing straight man, Abbott.

Babe Ruth wore 3.

“So, you don’t think they’ll let me have it?” Abbott asks.

He never threw a changeup with a better delivery.

On a go-to-the-beach kind of morning in Newport Beach, Jim Abbott is stuck indoors at home, waiting for a phone call from a woman in Manhattan who is arranging his new apartment. He and his wife, Dana Douty, are in the process of moving from Orange County to the Apple’s very core.

“We want to experience the city,” he says. “Take in the plays, the museums. We couldn’t do that as easily if we lived in New Jersey or in Connecticut.

“The way we look at it is, life is experiences. This will be our New York experience.”

And the culture shock?

“Hey, I’m a Michigan boy,” Abbott says. “Coming to California was a culture shock.”

So is leaving it. Particularly when you and your wife come home from a Hawaiian vacation one day and your mother-in-law meets you at the airport with the question: “Have you heard?”

“Heard what?” Jim asked.

“You’ve been traded.”

Welcome to the world of baseball. Even the most popular players change sides. Babe Ruth bounced from Boston to New York to Boston. One of Abbott’s teammates on the Yankees this season will be Wade Boggs. Seeing Boggs without his Red Sox uniform could be like seeing Larry Bird playing for the Knicks.

Speaking for myself, I have never enjoyed watching a baseball player play baseball as much as I have enjoyed Jim Abbott. Many others feel the same way. I never thought the Angels would let him go, and I think they will rue the day they did.

He is the kind of kid--yeah, I know he’s 25, but I believe Jim will still have a boyish enthusiasm when he is Nolan Ryan’s age--whose ego is as under control as his fastball. The kind of kid who met some of his new New York teammates last week for the first time, but says with sincerity: “I didn’t have the guts to go up and speak to Don Mattingly.”

Abbott had an inkling the trade was coming. For weeks, rumors flew that his services were being pitched to Toronto or the Yankees. Still, it’s a strange feeling, being swapped like one of those collector’s cards you autograph for kids.

Yet the one thing Jim Abbott always wanted most was to be treated like any other baseball player. And so he was. Traded away, even though he was one of Gene Autry’s most valuable players and undoubtedly the most popular. Traded to an American League rival for three promising but anonymous prospects.

In the beginning, he was the One-Hander, the left-handed pitcher with the missing right hand. The rewards Jim wanted most were Cy Young awards and World Series rings to go along with his Olympic gold medal. What he got--and, believe me, he appreciates it--were March of Dimes awards, “Most Courageous Athlete” plaques, special presentations at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

Gradually, though, he became just one of the guys.

Dependable as anyone.

Expendable as anyone.

The day he was traded, Abbott remembers: “At first, I was in shock. It was especially upsetting to my wife’s family, because it meant their daughter would be leaving. She’s a Californian through and through. So, we were a little emotional there. And you know how we ballplayers are. We’d all like to find out that we’re indispensable.

“It was hard to imagine leaving the Angels. I think the world of Mr. Autry. And (88-year-old coach) Jimmie Reese, he’s an idol of mine. But after a while, I started thinking: ‘OK, where am I going? To the Yankees? All right. That’s got possibilities.’ The Yankees seem to be committed to winning. They’ve picked up Boggs, Paul O’Neill, Jimmy Key, good people. Pretty soon, even my wife got excited about tackling New York. She’s a real warrior.”

They just got back from a card-signing show there.

“The fans have been great and gracious,” Abbott said, laughing. “Of course, I haven’t lost a single game yet.”

He will wear 25, his old Angel number. He believes Greg Cadaret wore it before, and maybe Tommy John before that? The Yankees have retired 12 numbers, including those of several players who--unlike Ruth--spent their entire career with one club.

Jim had hoped he could do that.

“I read this great article about how baseball needs to keep its generations of fans intact,” Abbott said. “Growing up in Michigan, I always expected to go to a Tiger game and see Alan Trammell, Lou Whitaker, Lance Parrish, the regular gang. They were our players.

“It’s no different for fans who follow the Angels. They thought Bryan Harvey would be there forever. They thought Wally Joyner would be there forever. But that’s not how it works, is it? I just hope people don’t think of it as disloyalty when a player leaves a team. Loyalty is a two-way street.”