Jim Abbott pitching. Photo: John Traub / Albuquerque Isotopes Baseball Club.
I watched a great sports documentary Sunday. “Southpaw. The Life and Legacy of Jim Abbott” on ESPN.
I’ll sum it up first. If this film, which far transcends just sports, doesn’t get a Sports Emmy, the Emmy is meaningless.
One of my Flint Saint Michael High School classmates, Steve, the best athlete in my class, posted on Facebook info about it premiering. Jim Abbott’s dad, Mike, was one of our best rivals and one of my teammate Steve’s best friends. We all graduated in 1967, the year Jim was born. Mike passed in 2022.
Before moving on, I want to note that Mike’s small Flint St Matthew High School went undefeated in Football, Basketball and Baseball our Senior year. And, Mike was a huge reason for that amazing feat. He was a superb athlete; impossible for one player to tackle in football. It took a pack to bring him down.
One of my community college teammates played on the much larger Flint Central High School’s basketball team that went to the 1967 State Championship game in the top, big school Division in the state. They lost to Detroit Pershing HS, which was led by legends Spencer Haywood and Ralph Simpson. However, my teammate Paul told me that the toughest game they played that entire year was a scrimmage against St. Matt’s.
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The basics are: Jim Abbott was born without a right hand. Despite that, he went on to become a skilled athlete; a University of Michigan, Olympic Champion and Major League pitcher. And ultimately more than that – an inspiration to generations of kids (and their parents) born with similar circumstances. The documentary ends with vignettes of numerous people born with similar conditions telling how much of an inspiration he was/is for them. Hard to keep dry eyes thru the whole film, but impossible at that point.
The documentary weaves his story around his returning to Yankee Stadium decades later and watching his legendary September 4, 1993 Pennant Race No Hitter on the jumbo screen there. It has interviews with his mother, brother, friends, teammates, coaches and rivals.
It starts off with Jim noting he is going to make a statement one rarely, if ever, hears;
“I grew up in the great city of Flint, Michigan.”
The film is very fair to Flint (also something rare.) It notes how tough life in Flint was/is. And, it notes the vibrant Flint Youth Sports scene and how that played into Jim’s success. (I so appreciate that. The Community Schools concept was started in Flint, created by General Motors’ Charles Stewart Mott and his friend/ally, local educator Frank Manley. Every Flint school had a Community School Director who managed the use of empty schools after hours by the citizenry and ran Youth Sports programs. There’s a reason Flint has produced more college and professional athletes than cities ten times its size.)
Jim Abbott, who who was born into a family of athletes, taught himself how to pitch and quickly transfer his glove from his right arm to his left hand for fielding and then back again, while grabbing the ball with his left hand for throwing, never let his condition hold him back. In fact, while every story the media produced about him after it caught on to him, always called him the “one-armed pitcher.” He hated that. He wanted nothing more than recognition as a “very good pitcher.”
It has a poignant segment when a New York sportswriter writes an article calling out Abbott and another pitcher for “underachieving” as a reason the Yankees were behind in the pennant race late in the season. Of course, Jim was pissed. But after angrily confronting the writer, Jim realized it was the first time he was actually treated like any other pitcher, apologized to the writer and thanked him. He then went on to pitch the legendary No Hitter.
During his career, Abbott always made time for meeting with the many parents and children with similar circumstances who contacted him. He knew what it meant to kids growing up with similar challenges. He graciously took and signed many photos with the kids; signed caps, jackets, articles, etc. for them. He attended and attends camps for such kids.
He tells the story of how when he was in Grade School, a kind teacher taught himself how to tie his shoes with only one hand and then taught Jim. Jim now teaches kids the same technique.
The film ends with folders full of letters from fans and ones he wrote back and the fore-mentioned videotaped testimonials from so many he has inspired.
Today, Jim is a motivational speaker, traveling the world telling his story and inspiring ever more kids. Jim Abbott is a great athlete, a great Flintstone, a great American and a great Human Being.
The post The Remarkable Career of Jim Abbott: How a Kid Born Without a Right Hand Became One of the Best Major League Pitchers of His Generation appeared first on CounterPunch.org.