Adversity Can’t Hit His Stuff

I have no quarrel with Jack McDowell and Greg Maddux winning the Cy Young awards this year, but, if it were left up to me, I’d give it to Jim Abbott every year.

You know the old schoolyard boast, “I could beat you with one hand tied behind my back?” Well, Jim Abbott almost does. One hand isn’t exactly tied behind his back. It simply doesn’t exist.

On Sept. 4 of last season, Abbott joined a select company of baseball’s elite--he pitched a no-hit game. Now, Nolan Ryan has pitched seven. But Ryan has both of his hands.

You know how, all those years, Babe Ruth set a record for home runs every time he came to bat and hit one? Well, Abbott sets a record for one-handed pitchers every time he takes the mound. There’s never been anything like him.

His career is the most inspirational in the annals of sport. For him to have pitched 124 games in the major leagues defies probability. If you had come across Abbott in a playground 15 years ago and someone had told you you were looking at a guy who would be a star pitcher for the New York Yankees one day, you’d have wondered where he escaped from.

But there was Abbott in the famous pinstripes in the House That Ruth Built last season setting down the Cleveland Indians with an assortment of fastballs, sliders at the knees and curves at the corners that Whitey Ford in his prime would have been proud to throw.

No one ever worried about Jim Abbott’s left arm. That was major league from the start. It was his right hand, or lack of one, that gave scouts pause.

Some years ago, a fine major league pitcher, Monty Stratton, lost a leg in a hunting accident. With a wooden prosthesis, he tried a comeback. There was even a film starring Jimmy Stewart. It was upbeat. But it didn’t have a happy ending.

In the best of all possible worlds, the league would have taken pity on Monty. Outlawed the bunt, ruled slow ground balls foul. Alas, regretfully, the league bunted Monty Stratton to death. You didn’t have to hit a home run. Merely meet the ball with two hands up the bat and you were on base. Four bunts equaled a home run.

You couldn’t fault baseball. Bunting to a slow clumsy pitcher who can’t handle the ground ball on a leg he can’t bend is a tactic as old as Ty Cobb. An integral part of the game. Win any way you can. The grand old game. No exceptions.

So, the prevailing opinion was, Abbott’s time would be short. He could get away with it in the tolerant, empathetic halls of colleges. But the big leagues were pitiless. He should take his amateur medals, his college-ball achievements, his Olympic gold and hang them on his bedroom wall along with his Sullivan Award emblematic of the best amateur athlete of the year. Be proud of that. Let well enough alone. Don’t go up there and get bunted to death. Don’t be another Monty Stratton.

But Abbott learned long before not to listen. Besides, there was nothing wrong with Abbott’s legs. If you bunted on Abbott all night long, he’d have a lot of no-hitters. He could pounce, change his glove from resting on his handless arm, scoop up the ball, transfer it and throw out the baserunner as capably--and quickly--as anyone in the game. In 1992, he was second in the league in consecutive errorless chances--46.

He pitched in bad luck. He had a 7-15 record in a year in which he had an earned-run average of only 2.7. His team got him an average of 2.6 runs, which meant that, most nights, Abbott had to pitch a one-run--or no-run--game.

But he was born to adversity. Born with the one hand, he was several years old before he noticed that most others had two.

Many were ready to cover their eyes--and ears--when Abbott was traded to the Yankees from the Angels last year. The consensus was, California fans, traditionally laid back, had been understanding and tolerant, undemanding, and saw in Abbott the kind of folk hero we all want.

But no one ever called New York “laid back.” Laid-on, perhaps. New York is a place where, if you want sympathy, you move. Join a monastery. New York is the citadel of the “Call yourself a pitcher, Abbott? Whitey Ford was a pitcher. You’re no Whitey Ford.”

But Abbott was agreeably surprised. “You know,” he recalls, “I had pitched there as a visiting team player. But, really, there’s nothing quite like being in a Yankee lineup, pitching in Yankee Stadium. It’s really a special feeling. You hear those crowds when the Red Sox come to town and they’re taunting them about 1919 . . . 1919!

“When I pitched my no-hit game, I got a call from Dave Righetti, who had pitched a no-hitter here (on July 4, 1983). And Rags said to me, ‘You know, there’s no place like Yankee Stadium to pitch a no-hitter.’ And he’s right. There’s a special electricity in the air. I pitched opening day there this year, and it was like this is the capital of baseball. These fans have a special love for the Yankees. Sometimes, they have a funny way of showing it, but it’s there. I’m glad to be part of it.

“They’re tough fans, but they were kind to me. But baseball rules here. There’s no old-timers’ day like the one in Yankee Stadium. You know, you really feel a part of history when you’re in the Yankees’ locker room. It’s like it’s the flagship of baseball.”

Because of his history and his grace, Abbott is appealed to on behalf of a number of charities. He is on the board of directors of Amigos De Los Ninos, an all-volunteer, nonprofit fund-raising organization dedicated to the financial aid of groups caring for children throughout Southern California who are disadvantaged physically or psychologically. It’s the charity closest to his heart.

Abbott, along with former ballplayer Rick Burleson, will be the host of a celebrity golf tournament for the Amigos De Los Ninos at Hacienda Golf Club on Monday to raise money for the charity.

“I feel it’s an important work we’re doing,” Abbott says.

No one knows better than he that a disadvantage can be no-hit, too. If you can get to be a New York Yankee with one hand tied behind your back, everything is possible.