Imperfect: An Improbable Life

by Jim Abbott

  These were the skills I took to the sidelines every Friday night, where I would appear quite prepared while watching my teammates win football games. I punted right-footed, an incongruity I tried not to give too much thought to.

  That team led with its skill players, with Division I types at quarterback (Randy Levels) and both offensive ends (Terence Greene, the basketball player, and David Burks). The following fall, Greene would play basketball for Ray Meyer at DePaul University. Burks went to Wisconsin to play football. Levels became the quarterback at Central Michigan. I folded in, ran the coming opponent’s plays in practice, took just enough first-team snaps in case calamity struck, and generally acted like the guy on loan from the baseball team.

  We played our games at Atwood Stadium, an iconic brick-and-mortar structure in downtown Flint that lit up for football every Friday night. It reeked of six decades of football games and of history; in that U-shaped stadium, more than 20,000 people turned out for President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936 and, twenty-four years later, 13,000 attended Senator John F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign stop. My dad played there. In Flint, everybody’s dad played there.

  We won often. And we followed the football routine of preparation, preparation, preparation, game. Football for me did not carry the personal consequences of baseball, beyond the usual comfort of inclusion. And winning, of course. My expectations were lower. I did not consider perfection, never mind demand it. The guys were fun, the games were fun, and I did what I could.

  With the playoffs one regular-season game away, the practice routine began to change. I was getting more repetitions with the first team. There seemed a greater urgency to have me ready. As the team grew more curious, the head coach, Joe Eufinger, announced before a practice that Levels, our quarterback, would not play. He was academically ineligible. Like that, the season had found me. I was excited and reasonably optimistic. Even so, a stomachache developed Monday afternoon and hung around all week.

  In my first start, a conservative game plan beat Flint Northern, our bitter rival, 43–14. Due to a quirk in the Flint school system, my math and science classes were on the Northern campus. I knew a few of the Northern players. In honor of my start at quarterback that night, some went to school wearing tube socks over their right hands and forearms. It bothered me, and the win tasted particularly good. I leaned on Greene and Burkes, along with tailback Ken Franklin and fullback Daryl Gilliam. I dutifully ran the plays that came in from the sidelines, mostly stayed behind our offensive line, and once rolled left and scored a two-point conversion. I needed time on the field to establish that I could stay out of the way of a win, and we needed an eighth win to continue the season.

  It came, easily, and I’d begun to feel the rhythm of the game. The state playoffs opened the following week against perennially talented Midland, who had beaten us in the regular season with a stout defense and a relentless ground game, our only loss. And we’d be without our starting quarterback.

  On a Saturday afternoon, Atwood Stadium was near full. Dad was up there, halfway to the press box, near the left-side 40-yard line. He sat with Mom and Chad amid a cluster of other parents. They huddled under ponchos and umbrellas, shivering against a cold rain.

  As a boy Dad had sat in those stands for the biggest Friday night games. During halftimes he’d meet the other boys on the lawn outside the open end of the stadium. They’d choose sides for skeleton games of tackle, adopting the names of the players from Central or Northern or whoever was playing that night. Years later, St. Matt’s won some big football games on that field. Dad knew the place well. In the minutes before game time, I could almost feel his anxiety for me. He knew I was nervous. The team had played well to get there and I didn’t want to be the reason we lost. There was more: I hoped that whatever came Dad would be proud of me. Around Flint, carrying the name Abbott meant hearing a lot about Mike Abbott, the two-way football player and three-sport star. Though he’d say he identified first with basketball, which I’d washed out of three years before, I thought of him as a football player. He was tough like that. He talked more like a football player and related to the game in ways that he didn’t to baseball.

  Dad was barely in his mid-thirties. As I approached adulthood, not all that many years after he’d gotten there, our relationship was complex. He was effusive in his affection for Chad and me. He told us he loved us unconditionally and we believed him. He established rules and fundamental values, left us to our lives outside the house, enjoyed the victories and soothed the failures. When I disappointed him, I was filled with remorse. When I brought home a good report card or pitched well in front of him, I sought his praise. I looked forward to those moments and wanted him to be proud.

  Dad seemed to be in a continuous search, however, for something. Sometimes it wouldn’t be at home. He’d fight with Mom and leave. We figured he’d be back and he always did return eventually. But in the meantime we’d all be a little raw. Mom wasn’t the same, the house was quieter, and my thoughts were never far from the driveway, which I’d stare at, wondering when Dad’s car would pull in. There were times I resented the way he treated Mom, and how his disappearances distressed her. I was protective of her, not him. By my senior year at Central, their relationship seemed to be in a tumultuous place, and I secretly wished my athletic achievements would somehow bring them together and then keep them together. I hoped our house would be more peaceful. My desire for them to be together was even stronger than my yearning for his approval. On a rainy fall night at Atwood Stadium, they were together. We were all together. It felt good.

  The game was hyped all week. From the talk around school, stories in The Flint Journal, and the mood at practices, the buildup was unlike anything I’d seen. Coach Eufinger was a large, gravelly-voiced, well-regarded man who’d played offensive and defensive tackle at Central and then at Purdue. As that might suggest, he favored a running game. He’d adjusted to the speed and talent of our receivers, however, so our offense leaned toward the wide open, which had grown on him. He loved this team, as it was so rich in senior talent and character. He delivered an even speech about doing our jobs, trusting our teammates, and leaving it all out there, and then the senior captains began to shout. The locker room was as Spartan as they come, adorned with little more than hooks and benches. But it was filled with uncommon friendship and trust. For an afternoon and for this generation, these were the faces of Central, the black ones and the white ones, the true colors of Central. The fear of my early days there, and the scars of that stairwell whipping and others like it, had been replaced by admiration and a common cause. I wondered if everyone felt the same. I hoped they did. I joined in the chorus of camaraderie, and when our captains bolted for the door, we chased them onto the sodden artificial turf.

  The following two and a half hours were surreal. Everything went right. Every play cut through the Midland defense. Every ball I threw found a receiver, and every receiver found a seam to the end zone. Accurate passes found their targets. Inaccurate passes found other friendly hands. Four went for touchdowns.

  Near the end, we led, 26–20. The ball was deep in our territory. We needed only to punt the ball away to win. I stood twelve yards behind the snapper, wiping my hands on my pants against the rain. On the sideline, Coach Eufinger grinned and thought, Here we are, a play from going to the state semifinals, it’s pouring rain, the ball is soaking wet, and my punter has one hand. It’s beautiful. His faith in me was remarkable. I took the snap waist-high, swung my leg, and watched the ball fly away. We were going to the state semis.

  From the field I watched my parents leave the stands. They’d go out to celebrate with the other parents. Tired and cold, I went home. The kitchen was dark. When I turned on the light, on the breakfast nook table was a page of notebook paper, and on that a few words of Dad’s half-printed, half-cursive handwriting. I held the note to the light. It read:

  Proud of you son.

  —Dad

  He believed he’d seen me approach ma
nhood that afternoon, when the playing field was something other than a diamond, and the game was something other than baseball, and the odds were long. He knew I was a little afraid. Those days he’d sent me back into the world weren’t so easy on him, either. He was afraid, too. Now I’d gone out on my own, nodded, leaned in to take an uneasy snap, and helped win a game he knew everything about.

  The following Saturday, we’d play Ann Arbor Pioneer in East Lansing. The winner would play in the Pontiac Superdome for the state title. Network television came to town to do a Thanksgiving Day story on the one-handed quarterback from Flint. It was a heady week, and then I threw six interceptions, all that had gone right against Midland went wrong against Pioneer, and we lost. And that was the end of football for me.

  CHAPTER 8

  In the dugout, I held the previous three outs in my hand. It might have looked like a paper cup half filled with water, but to me it was an inning gone by. I’d taken to marking my innings with cups, the first inning turned upside down on the shelf behind me, the second on top of that, the third soon to be stacked on those. My navy Yankees jacket zipped to my collarbone and a white towel draped around my neck, I studied the water in that cup, considered the dugout stairs covered in green outdoor carpeting, mulled the various liquids that pooled on the dugout floor.

  Maldonado had been fooled on the last pitch in the top of the third inning, swinging over a curveball, trying not to at the last instant, flipping the bat away with disgust. In my head I held on to that release point, the feel of the ball rolling out of my hand, and waited for the fourth inning when all the runs I’d need arrived.

  Bob Milacki, a big, thick right-hander, had started for the Indians and hadn’t given up a hit through two innings. After spending most of the season pitching for the Indians’ Triple-A team in Charlotte, Milacki was making his first big-league start in almost a year, when along came one of those innings that leaves a pitcher feeling terribly helpless.

  To begin with, he walked Mike Gallego. Randy Velarde popped up a bunt that Milacki’s catcher, Ortiz, made a terrific play on, diving down the third-base line for the out. Wade Boggs—being Wade Boggs—hooked a fastball and turned a good pitch away into a single to right field. It put runners at first and second, one out, for Dion James, a left-handed hitter who was having one of his better seasons but had one hit in his last eleven at-bats. He banged a 3-and-1 fastball through Milacki’s legs and into center field, which should have scored Gallego and only Gallego, but instead scored everyone, including James.

  The old Yankee Stadium’s infield was crowned, presumably to promote drainage, and the grass was pretty long. From the dugout you couldn’t see infielders’ feet, ankles, or most of their shins. In moments like this, in order to see everything, everyone would slide off the bench, try not to slam their heads on the roof, and scale a step or two.

  Gallego scored. Boggs dragged his sore back around second base and made for third, taking a chance on Kenny Lofton’s arm. Lofton threw a two-hopper that skipped past third baseman Jim Thome while James trailed into second base, and Boggs scored while Thome fetched the ball in foul territory, over by the Indians’ dugout. When Thome threw to the plate—a one-hopper through Ortiz’s legs—James advanced to third. Then—when the ball rolled into the Yankees’ dugout—he was awarded home. In the end: a three-run, two-error single that gave us a 3–0 lead.

  Just to revisit, it’s September, I’ve made twenty-six previous starts for the Yankees, and I’ve got nine wins. I’d won once since July. Now I’m ahead 3–0 going into the fourth inning, I haven’t given up a hit, my stuff feels pretty good, and I’m trying to force thoughts of a win out of my head. My battle between innings was to quiet my mind, let go of what had already happened and the anxiety of what might happen. The time in between innings was used to reboot, clear my thoughts, rest my mind. Sometimes I’d listen to a song in my head, play it over and over, to escape the din and slow the game. To symbolize another fresh start, I’d gently swing my foot back and forth across the dugout floor, sweeping away the sunflower seeds and balled-up cups and gum wrappers. In Anaheim the floor was rubber matting, in New York it was that green carpet that reminded me of artificial turf, in Chicago—the old Comiskey Park—it was weathered wooden planks. I wiped away the past inning, watched the game, hoped for runs.

  Scoring some runs—especially like we had—allowed me to believe that maybe things were going to go right today.

  Man, I wanted to win a game. I won eighteen times in 1991, pitched better in 1992 and won only seven. It would be hard to exaggerate how hard it seemed to win a game by the end of 1993. After my first start that season—I pitched a complete game and beat David Cone and the Kansas City Royals in front of 57,000 people in the home opener—a writer asked if I wasn’t a bit too happy about it, considering it was April 12 and there were five and a half months still to play. I was just damned happy to win a ballgame, and always was. I tried not to make it a focus during a game, but it wasn’t ever far from my mind.

  By the conclusion of that inning—Mattingly struck out, Danny Tartabull, the DH, popped to second base—I’d left those thoughts behind. I returned to the process of pitching, of tuning out the world and tuning in Nokes and the Indians, of trusting that I was good enough to do this, pitch by pitch.

  Ten pitches later—Fermin grounded to Gallego, who made a great backhanded play on a well-hit ball, while Baerga also hit a grounder to Gallego and Belle pounded a cutter away to Boggs—I returned to the dugout, and went to add another cup to the stack. I was twelve outs in.

  CHAPTER 9

  The drive from Berrien Springs, near the southern tip of Lake Michigan, to Flint took almost three hours—longer, perhaps, in a worn Chrysler K car, which Don Welke preferred. The older baseball scouts told Welke he’d wreck his back running around the Midwest in that little thing, but he would laugh, say it suited him just fine, put another 200,000 miles on it, and go buy another. When Welke believed in something, there wasn’t much talking him out of it.

  In the summer of 1985, some two thousand miles on that odometer were dedicated to trips to Flint.

  Among the first scouts hired by the expansion Toronto Blue Jays almost eight years before, Welke had been drawn east across the state by a phone call from Walt Head, a coach in Flint who had once scouted for the Baltimore Orioles and Blue Jays. Head told Welke there was a left-handed pitcher in town he might want to take a look at. The kid was in deep with the college guys down at Ann Arbor, Head said, but he threw hard and competed like few he’d ever coached, so it might be worth the drive. “Don,” Head said before saying good-bye, “he doesn’t have a right hand, but you’d never know it.”

  Intrigued, Welke pointed his K car toward Flint just as the high school baseball season was starting, when Michigan hadn’t yet shaken winter. The baseball field at Central was only just thawing out. Welke came early and didn’t say much. He wasn’t one for announcing his presence, handing out cards, inflating the hopes of boys who’d probably be disappointed come draft day. There was, however, no mistaking what Welke was. His broad shoulders, barrel chest, close-cropped hair, steady stare, and binder outed him as a scout.

  That first afternoon, Welke introduced himself to no one. During the game, he’d drift from the stands to the backstop to the edge of the dugout, watching and listening. This was how he’d measured Dave Stieb, how he’d one day look over Pat Hentgen and John Olerud—from the shadows. Few ever called him about a guy who couldn’t play. They could all play, at least a little. What Welke wanted to see were facial expressions. He wanted to hear a prospect talk to his teammates. He wanted to see his eyes, then decide what was behind them.

  Was this kid selfish? Was he a team guy? Did he know how to win? Minor-league ball was a meat grinder: Did he want it bad enough?

  Head, Welke thought, was right about this left-hander. He had a good, loose arm that ran it up there from 88 to 90, sometimes 91. The velocity was effortless. He’d get more out of a body that was six foot three,
too, as he had plenty of filling out to do. He commanded his pitches from a delivery that, in spite of his length, was rather compact. Welke couldn’t take his eyes off him. He believed this lefty had nothing short of a golden arm, one that projected even more velocity as it matured.

  Of the thousands of high school ballplayers Welke had seen, few jumped off a baseball diamond because of their competitiveness. The sport didn’t always allow it. In a team game wrapped in individual moments, sometimes the game just never gets around to one player. But a pitcher could drag a game along with him through will alone, and Welke looked out at this lefty and thought how easy he made it look.

  If there were two things Welke had learned scouting over the years—and, really, there were more like a million—they were: Anytime you see a guy do something easy, you better pay attention; and, there are no absolutes in baseball.

  This lefty, Welke believed, carried desire that was bigger than his talent. He carried himself genuinely. He liked his teammates. They liked him. And, dang, if he couldn’t hit, too.

  Welke often took special interest in the young men other scouts left behind. He was curious about the troublemakers, the attitude problems, the boys with the tainted backgrounds. He took longer looks at players who clearly were injured but playing through the pain for the good of the team. He scouted deaf kids and fat kids and kids whose growth spurts had temporarily rendered them clumsy. He watched their hands and their feet, wondering if they were windows to their baseball futures, their baseball souls.

  The only absolute, Welke thought again as he leaned against the backstop and watched the lefty, is there are no absolutes.

  When the game ended, Welke walked to the K car waiting in the parking lot. He had three hours to cover on the ride home. He had spoken to no one and hadn’t ever broken his poker face, hadn’t even raised an eyebrow as the lefty overwhelmed an overmatched lineup. He had, however, filled a few pages in a notebook, some of it from memory while the car idled in the parking lot. In a life filled with highway rest-stop food and fool’s gold, Welke mused that days like this were the reward. In a gritty neighborhood on Flint’s East Side, he’d witnessed a can’t-miss arm attached to a can’t-miss fighter. He was sure of it.