Let the inspirational Jim Abbott explain 'what my little hand has taught me'

It’s been over twenty years, but Jim Abbott still remembers the question coming at him like a hard smash back up the middle.

That, Abbott could handle. Despite being born without a right hand, fielding was not a problem for the former pitcher, an Olympic gold medalist and winner of 87 games over 10 Major League seasons.

It wasn’t just the question that caught him off guard, but the person who asked it – Abbott’s then four-year-old daughter Ella – and when she asked it – during a presentation at preschool.

“Do you like your little hand?” she asked.

“It kind of threw me for a loop,” Abbott said in an interview with MLB.com. “It's really a question that had been an internal one my whole life, even though I hadn't had the wisdom to sort of narrow it down.”

And here he was sitting in a room full of preschoolers pondering it in real time.

Abbott, a native of Flint, Mich., was born without a fully formed right hand. His right arm stops just above the wrist and forms part of a palm, but rounds off without fingers.

While so much of Abbott’s story is about how he was born, where he was born and raised matters when you consider the path his life has taken.

Flint, by definition, is a hard stone, a material that can be used to start a fire. It is also used to describe something very hard or unyielding.

“I don’t think it’s any secret to anybody that Flint, Michigan, is a tough place,” Abbott said.

A sports-loving community with an industrial town work ethic molded Abbott’s athletic skill and determination. As Abbott grew into a superb athlete, he found confidence in himself and acceptance from those around him.

Baseball became Abbott’s true love. While there were times that attention was the last thing he sought, he was very comfortable with what being a pitcher meant.

“I loved being on a team, and in some weird way [I also] loved being the center of the field, in the middle of the attention,” he said.

Pitching was only something Abbott could do if he could figure out how to field the ball or shield himself from hard liners. So he developed a unique method of balancing the glove on the end of his right arm, throwing a pitch with his left arm, then quickly slipping the glove onto his left hand and getting into fielding position.

“What I love about my hometown is … it didn’t matter how you got the job done,” Abbott said. “It just mattered if I could throw strikes.”

His deftness in making the glove switch happened by simple repetition born out of the same make-believe games thousands of kids have played over the years.

“I was out there pretending to be Jack Morris or Nolan Ryan,” Abbott said with a laugh. “I just got quicker and quicker with that glove and making the switch.”

As it turned out, Abbott’s left arm was a gift. He became one of the top pitchers in the state and accepted a scholarship offer to the University of Michigan. But his journey didn’t end there.

In 1987, he won the Sullivan Award as the nation’s top amateur athlete, and then in the summer of ‘88 pitched the U.S. to victory over Japan with a complete game in the gold medal game at the Summer Olympics in Seoul. That same year, Abbott was drafted 8th overall in the MLB Draft.

“[To look back on] the experiences now, I have to pinch myself,” Abbott said. “They sometimes don’t even seem real.”

He made the Angels Opening Day roster in 1989 without spending a single day in the Minor Leagues. He won a career-high 18 games in 1991 and finished third in AL Cy Young voting, just ahead of his boyhood idol Morris.

Abbott is best remembered, however, for a game he pitched for the Yankees after being traded to New York following the 1992 season. On a magical Saturday afternoon in the Bronx on Sept. 4, 1993, Abbott pitched a no-hitter against Cleveland.

“It’s hard to believe how much your life can change [because of one game],” Abbott said. “That game has so many layers to it.”

From the time he broke into the Majors, Abbott had seen the inspiration he provided for children with disabilities – the fan mail and the families who came to the ballpark just to see him.

“I embraced and loved that, but I also wanted my message to be one of success,” Abbott said. “I didn’t want to just participate. I wanted to be good. I felt like that was as powerful a message as anything. So in some ways … that’s what the no-hitter is. That game has taken on that aura, so I deeply cherish it.”

For that reason, the final out of Abbott’s no-hitter is the biggest highlight of his 10-year Major League career. And if Abbott has one firm belief, it’s that where – and how – he was born made that moment and his extraordinary life possible.

“My dad told me, ‘What’s been taken away once will be given back twice,’” Abbott reflected. “That was a really powerful message. What he was basically saying is more has been given to [me] than has been taken away.”

It took many years of competing at the highest levels for Abbott to recognize the gift he had been given, and to realize the message he was able to impart over and over again to young children with disabilities of all kinds. While he tried simply to make his own path, he wound up an inspiration.

Back now in the preschool classroom, this amazing life full of accomplishments flashed before Abbott’s eyes as he pondered his daughter’s question, and the answer came to him quite clearly.

“I didn’t always like my little hand. I didn’t like being different," Abbott said. “These things that we face, these challenges, are no fun to go through, but they become who we are, you know?”

“I firmly believe that I wouldn’t have pitched a no-hitter at Yankee Stadium without being born this way,” he continued. “It gave me a drive, it gave me a determination, it gave me a competitiveness.”

And it taught him the biggest lesson of all.

“You can do things differently in this world, but you can do them just as well as anybody else. It’s important to remember who you are and what you bring to the table. No matter what you’re confronted with, you have what it takes to succeed.

“That’s what my little hand has taught me.”