Abbott Wants to Wear Smile Above All Else

A shrug, then a grin. One of the most dignified men to wear a major league uniform couldn’t say for sure what was on his minor league cap.

“It’s a claw,” Jim Abbott said, “I think.”

The Hickory Crawdads, a team that bills itself the “Fighting Shellfish” and its mascot as “everyone’s favorite crustacean,” mix in a few smiles with their baseball. If Abbott can do the same, he can consider his comeback a success, whether the White Sox promote him to the major leagues or drop him somewhere along the road from here to Chicago.

Abbott emerged from hibernation to seek a second ending to his career. Not for the fans in Anaheim, who adored him during his twin stints with the Angels. Not for the teammates, who admired him. Not for the coaches, who worked with him tirelessly. Not for the management, which invested heavily in him.

He respects the game too much to demand a specific ending--another no-hitter, another major league victory, whatever. He simply wants to end his career with a smile this time, without the crushing burden as if he failed a franchise and a community, without someone stunning him by telling him to decide whether he preferred to be fired or demoted.

“There’s an old saying: Sometimes you have to die a little bit to live. In baseball terms, I died,” Abbott said. “My career was essentially over. When you face the worst, you can say, all right, that’s bad, but it can never be that bad again. You’re able to let go.

“If this doesn’t work out--if the White Sox aren’t happy with my stuff or if I’m not happy with my stuff--I’ll go home and know I’ve given it everything. I can move on.

“It won’t be the devastation I felt when I was released by the Angels.”

Abbott, 30, never chooses his words lightly, never takes his responsibilities lightly. Even here, sitting at a wooden picnic table beneath the shadow of the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Angels are not far from his mind. The pain and disappointment lingers, for he could not fulfill a contract that paid him millions to win games in Anaheim this season.

“I’ve thought a lot about the Angels. I feel really bad about what happened, and I think they do, too,” Abbott said.

“I think they know--and I think the White Sox know--I wish I was there and contributing to the team. I wish I could change that. I can’t.”

Bill Bavasi, the Angels’ general manager, was quite the conquering hero in the summer of 1995. For the modest price of four prospects, none prized, Bavasi acquired Abbott from the White Sox, igniting euphoria in Anaheim and reuniting the pitcher with the community that loved him from the day he jumped directly from the University of Michigan and the 1988 U.S. Olympic team into the Angels’ starting rotation.

In addition to abundant talent, Abbott captured the public imagination with his polite and thoughtful demeanor, his charity work and his endless encouragement to youngsters, particularly those with disabilities. If I can make it to the majors without a right hand, Abbott stressed, you can follow your dreams too.

Abbott, perhaps the Angels’ most popular player since Nolan Ryan, subsequently signed a three-year, $7.8-million contract. In 1992, the Angels traded Abbott after he refused to accept a four-year, $16-million offer. This time, Abbott directed agent Scott Boras to solicit the best deal he could to remain in Anaheim. In an era of disposable heroes--where is Mike Piazza playing this week, anyway?--the Angels and their fans rejoiced.

Without warning, Abbott crashed. He placed ninth in the American League with a 3.70 earned-run average in 1995, last with a 7.48 ERA in 1996. He lost 18 games and won two, one that required the Angels to turn a triple play. He pitched in the bullpen for the first time, in the minor leagues for the first time.

When the spring of ’97 revealed no more promise than the summer of ‘96, Bavasi cut his losses. Abbott accepted his release instead of returning to the minors, and the Angels paid him $5.6 million to satisfy the remaining two years of his contract. He thanked everyone, declined to announce his retirement and locked the door behind him.

“The end came so suddenly,” he said. “Maybe others saw it coming. I didn’t see it coming. I felt like I could get things on track and continue playing. I wasn’t prepared for that.”

All the millions baseball players earn cannot buy them a summer vacation. For the first time, Abbott could spend the summer with his wife, Dana. He could share in the first summer of his daughter, Madeleine. And yet, even with the comfort of loved ones, rejection stung.

“I don’t know if I would call it a vacation,” Abbott said. “I was lost. I was hurt. In a lot of ways, I was scared. I just kind of holed up.

“I didn’t really feel in my heart I was going to play again . . . I felt so guilty. I felt like I didn’t deserve to play.”

Mark Langston, one of his best friends, invited him to work out over the winter. Abbott did, but a little nagging shoulder soreness and a lot of nagging self-doubt tilted the scales against a comeback.

“He looked good, but he didn’t want to do it,” Langston said. “I was bummed out.

“Now I’m excited. I thought all along he should give it another shot. We’re all going to miss the game. To be as young as he is and still have the opportunity is critical.”

After Langston left for spring training, Buck Rodgers called. Abbott hadn’t spoken recently to his former manager, but Rodgers also invited him to resume throwing and encouraged him to consider a comeback.

“I just thought it was ridiculous,” Rodgers said. “He’s 30 years old. I didn’t think he was through yet. I don’t like to see talent wasted.”

Said Abbott: “My family is No. 1, and there’s 1,000 joys in every day of my life. But then I started realizing most of the great things in my life are due to baseball.

“Without baseball, and the challenges of it, my life was starting to shrink into routine. I wasn’t expanding. I was caving in. Without anything on the horizon to provide those life experiences, I wanted to play.”

Not close to home, not where every minor league appearance would draw uncomfortable scrutiny from the curious and faithful. Not with Rodgers’ Western League team in Mission Viejo, though the Vigilantes would have been thrilled. Certainly not with the Angels, to spare himself and everyone else the emotional flood.

“I think Bill [Bavasi] was pretty wise [in releasing me],” Abbott said. “I think he knew it was time for me to be away from the team. It was getting disruptive.

“For me to go back there, it’s not going to fix what happened. That’s in the past. My making it back to the major leagues is not going to fix that--for me or for them.”

When Bavasi traded for Abbott in 1995, the Angels distributed commemorative buttons to welcome him home. When the White Sox signed Abbott last week, a Chicago columnist poked fun at owner Jerry Reinsdorf for proclaiming a youth movement last year and producing Ruben Sierra, Wil Cordero and now Abbott this year. Not a shot at Abbott, to be sure, but not unbridled adulation, either.

The White Sox refused to announce when or where Abbott would begin his comeback, depriving the Crawdads of the chance to promote the event and possibly draw a sellout crowd. Still, within 48 hours of Abbott’s start here Sunday, Crawdads media relations director Evan Malter said he had received 30 calls from fans and 30 more from media outlets, including one newspaper in New Jersey that wished to talk to Abbott for a story about a handicapped local athlete.

Abbott may be young by major league standards, but not here. In his first exposure to life below the triple-A level, the next oldest player here is 24.

Brian Downs, his catcher Sunday, was 13 when Abbott made his major league debut in 1989. Downs attended Chino Don Lugo High and Riverside College.

“It was weird seeing him play in Anaheim Stadium in high school and then seeing him out here, live and in person,” Downs said.

In that first start, Abbott gave up one run in four innings, making 56 pitches. He gave up three hits, all singles, walking two and striking out two. He is scheduled to start again tonight at Class A Winston-Salem, one step up from Hickory.

“I think he can pitch in the big leagues again,” Rodgers said. “He’s just got to get his competitive edge back. He’s worked on some things. It’s going to take him four or five weeks to get everything in sync. After that, he should be able to pitch in the big leagues.”

Just what has Abbott worked on? Rodgers said he offered a few suggestions to revise Abbott’s delivery, and Rodgers and Langston suspected a connection between decreased weight lifting and increased velocity. The White Sox clocked Abbott at 88 mph before signing him, slightly below average in the majors.

“He looks real good, like the young Jim Abbott,” Langston said. “It seemed every year he’d get thicker and thicker. He looked real lean this year.”

In deference to the coaches and trainers who worked so diligently with him after the 1996 disaster--particularly Angel pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, who shepherded him like a son--Abbott blames no one but himself for whatever poor habits he might have adopted and declines to discuss whatever flaws he may have corrected.

He concedes, however, that he must hurdle the emotional barrier of being afraid to throw a lesser fastball across the plate. The fastball of his youth is gone forever.

“I may not get to 90 or 92 [mph] again, but I can get to the point where I have a fastball to work off of,” he said. The career of his youth may be gone forever too. In a few weeks, he’ll know and we’ll know.

“I’m proud of my career if I don’t ever play in the major leagues again,” Abbott said. “I just felt like I finished the game on a bad note. It was too good a thing to have that regret.

“When you’re younger, you find something good, and you want it to last forever. When you’re older, you find out it can’t. You try to enjoy it for the moments it lasts.”