Imperfect: An Improbable Life

by Jim Abbott

  The few working fans seemed only to force more hot air into our barracks. We shared one pay phone. The television received only local channels through a rabbit-ears antenna, so during our breaks we watched the only thing that was on: Oliver North testifying before a joint congressional committee investigating the Iran-Contra scandal.

  It might not sound like much, but I loved it.

  I was meeting and playing against some of the best college players in the country, players I’d only read and heard about. I was fitting in. I was pitching well. For the first time, I thought maybe I could compete against anyone and have the same chance to play professionally.

  And while we were all griping about the humidity, and the food, and the conditions, and the tedium of the workouts, we also were drawing together, maybe what USA Baseball and Coach Fraser had in mind. In only a few weeks, we would be sent to Havana, Cuba, to play a team widely believed to be among the best on earth—even considering the U.S. major leagues. We had a long way to go in a short time, because there was potential for intimidation and embarrassment in Cuba, where Castro demanded hardball superiority and generally got it.

  “Guys, they’re not that good,” Fraser would growl through a curled lip. “They’d probably only finish fourth in the AL East this year.”

  Fraser was a character like Tommy Lasorda was a character, equal parts baseball man, pitchman, and grandfather.

  Team USA left for Havana in mid-July. We flew into Miami, where in a special area of the Miami airport we boarded a government-sponsored charter. We were greeted on the plane by officials from state departments of the United States and Cuba. It was all very formal, more so than we’d expected, and the short flight through the darkness to the communist nation didn’t foster the usual levels of goofing around. We were all a little nervous.

  The great Cuban players awaited, along with a team that many compared to the near unbeatable Russian hockey teams of earlier generations. Beyond the baseball, we wondered what the hotel would be like, the food, the water, the people. It would be daunting enough to play the Cubans on a neutral field, but this would be on their turf, before their countrymen, and their president. For some among them, there would be not just the baseball result, but a commentary on the two governments and their people. We were a bunch of college kids, so it seemed a lot to carry. We arrived at night to a tedious customs process. Cuban officers kept us at the airport for what seemed to be three or four hours. They checked every pocket of every person, every compartment of every suitcase. There were, I’d say, forty of us in the traveling party. And one by one we’d gather up our clothes and gear, repack them, and drag it all across the tarmac to the bus, where we’d watch the next guy go through the same laborious pat-down, all while press photographers rushed us, lighting the tarmac with their flashbulbs. They took a keen interest in me, too keen for it to have been about baseball. I slid my right hand into my jacket pocket and tried to seem friendly.

  The Cubans had invited us down, but clearly weren’t ready to trust us. A few days later, when Castro came to greet us, they’d even secured the bats.

  Years later, when I was pitching for the California Angels, I’d hear from Castro again. He wanted an autographed baseball.

  CHAPTER 10

  Most of my life when I wound up and threw a baseball it started out straight, but as it neared its destination it would move—sometimes hard, sometimes slightly—from left to right, as if drawn by a magnet. For all I knew the first ball I ever tossed to my dad did the same thing, as did the first ball I threw at the brick wall outside my house, as did the ball that counted for my first strikeout in Little League.

  Baseball people called it a cut fastball, or a cutter. Through high school the ball would drift right, almost imperceptibly. At Michigan, purely by accident, I came upon a grip that felt good in my hand and would be considered quite unorthodox. The ball cut even more. I’d never seen anyone pitch with that particular grip. As a matter of fact, I never would. Occasionally I would show a fellow pitcher how I held the ball. Almost without fail he would stare for a while, mimic the grip, and hand the ball back, as if I were crazy.

  It worked for me. And on good, warm days I could crank it up into the mid-90s. Another element: because I had to hood my glove over my right hand, I could not hide the ball or my grip. Even if the hitter couldn’t necessarily see my hand on the ball, he was about the only one in the ballpark who couldn’t, and it would have been simple enough for him to find out. Ballplayers find their ways. For one, that’s what teammates are for.

  So, rather than grope at the ball, changing grips, going to different pitches, sometimes it was easier—and more effective—to simply locate the cutter. For me, it was the most natural thing. I’d throw it as hard as I could, keep my front shoulder closed and finish as far out in front as I could, and watch it go. It was a good pitch in college, and an even better pitch in the big leagues, where the bats were wooden and prone to splintering.

  I’d learned and developed other pitches along the way—the curveball, the changeup, the slider—but nothing was quite so comfortable as the cutter, and as I pitched into the fifth inning against the Indians, their hitters were still looking for it. The righties, especially, were opening up early, trying to get the thick part of the bat to the ball before the ball got to the thin part of the bat. So, they pulled my off-speed pitches foul, or hit them off the ends of their bats, generally toward my guys.

  We’d drawn to within two games of the AL East–leading Blue Jays, the rain was holding off, and we were beating the Indians, so the crowd was happy and lively. The people in the stands were as pleased that we were winning as I was. Well, maybe.

  Of course, I wasn’t perfect. I’d walked Lofton in the first inning, Milligan in the second and, now, leading off the fifth inning, Milligan again, on four pitches. There are few things more annoying than holding a lead and walking the leadoff hitter, particularly one who’d bat .190 against me in his career. But I missed away a couple times, threw the 2-and-0 pitch too far inside and to the backstop, then missed inside again.

  That brought Manny Ramirez, who—wisely, given the events of the first hitter of the inning—took the first pitch. It was a curveball and it nicked the outside corner for a strike. He then swung through a cutter up in the zone, so I’m ahead, 0 and 2. After I bounced a curveball for ball one, I think Ramirez saw another curveball coming, because he crushed it.

  Randy Velarde, at shortstop, had just enough time to lean a little left and get his glove in front of his belt buckle. The ball was hit so hard Milligan couldn’t tell if Velarde caught it in the air or it had bounced. So, while Milligan’s instincts carried him a little toward second, then a little toward first, then back to second again, his legs checked out. While Velarde flipped to Gallego, who made the relay to first, Milligan finally gathered himself and took a few steps backward toward right field, surrendering the double play.

  Fifteen years later, asked about the Saturday afternoon game against the Yankees with so many of his friends and relatives in the stands, Ramirez would shrug and say, “We hit some balls hard.”

  That might have been the ball he remembered.

  Maldonado, who so concerned Nokes, ended the inning by flying to Dion James in left field on the eighth pitch of the at-bat.

  I was five innings in. Into what, I didn’t know. But, we were ahead. I’d gotten fifteen outs without any major crises. The stack of cups was growing.

  CHAPTER 11

  The dark and dusty tunnel beneath the Indianapolis Motor Speedway led to a short flight of stairs, which led to light. Behind me, 676 men and women shuffled through the darkness.

  I held their flag.

  Ours was the last nation to be announced, and after a long wait we were summoned by a gentleman’s nod and wave. As we began to advance on the light, the volunteer workers among us at the 10th Pan American Games began a chant of “USA! USA!,” urging us forward, when finally a great voice announced our arrival to the 70,000 whose eyes were on
the mouth of the tunnel.

  “Los Estados Unidos,” the man bellowed across the racetrack.

  The people stood with a roar, honoring the flag. In the late-summer heat, goose bumps rose against my white suit, which long before had become soaked with sweat.

  I turned to wave to the crowd. My parents were up there somewhere. So were George H. W. Bush, the vice president, and Juan Antonio Samaranch, the International Olympic Committee President. I searched for Mom and Dad, in vain.

  Days before, to my astonishment, I’d been chosen to lead the American contingent down the straightaway, along the banked turns, and into the field with the other competing nations. As the host country, we’d appeared thirty-eighth and last, and to great anticipation. The Cubans, whom we were getting to know quite well, stood not far away.

  The flag felt heavy in my left hand and in the curl of my right wrist. I couldn’t quite get over the notion that Greg Louganis, the Olympic gold medalist in diving, or David Robinson, the All-American basketball player from Navy, should be out in front, or so many others. And I continued to be nagged by thoughts that the recognition went beyond what I’d done on baseball fields. Really, I assumed when I’d arrived in Indianapolis I’d be somewhere amid the swarm of white fedoras with my friends and teammates.

  Still, of course, I was touched. And proud.

  In the hours leading to the opening ceremony, I’d been led into a press conference, where I was asked about the personal significance of carrying the flag, and about our growing rivalry with Cuba (mostly in our heads, I speculated, not theirs), about our chances for gold, and, of course, about my physical situation. From the back of the room, a reporter had posed a lighthearted question, given I’d met Castro only weeks before: What would Michigan’s iconic and old-school football coach Bo Schembechler think about me consorting with the communist leader?

  “Actually,” I answered, not really thinking but willing to go along, “they have a very similar presence, except that Castro is bigger and wider. They both have a dictatorial presence.”

  It got a laugh.

  I surmised, playing to the crowd, “It’s about even.”

  At ivy-walled Bush Stadium, we won eight games in the tournament, and lost once. The loss was in the gold medal game to the Cubans, whom we’d beaten earlier in the week. While disappointing, the silver medal assured Team USA a place in the 1988 Summer Olympics, where baseball would be a demonstration sport. In two starts I hadn’t allowed a run (the first batter of my first start, a Nicaraguan, bunted, of course), a pleasant conclusion to a summer of USA Baseball in which I’d won eight games in ten starts. More important, we had rewarded USA Baseball’s courage in assembling a team of mostly sophomores in college. The organization’s intent was to build toward the Olympics, where it would field a team that had grown together, through the trials of the Cuban series and the Pan Am Games. A more veteran team perhaps would have qualified with greater ease, but also would have been stripped down by the next major-league draft. In spite of our youth, we’d left the summer convinced we could compete with the most talented amateur teams in the world, including Cuba, no matter the venue.

  From mid-June to late August, we’d played forty-three games, from Millington, Tennessee, to Havana, Cuba, to Indianapolis, Indiana. We won thirty-four of them. Mike Fiore had hit .398 and now he was returning to Miami. Tino Martinez, who had hit nine home runs, was going back to the University of Tampa. Cris Carpenter and his 1.39 ERA were headed to Georgia, Ed Sprague to Stanford, Ty Griffin to Georgia Tech, Scott Servais to Creighton, and Dave Silvestri to Missouri.

  We’d grinded through a lot of innings, filled up on a lot of buffets, and logged a lot of miles in yellow school buses, so much so that our arrival in Indianapolis was a relief, and in itself was a victory, like we’d survived so much. When we pulled into the athletes’ village and then our dorm parking lot, a synchronized swimming team practiced its moves on dry land. The women were dressed for summer, in Dolphin shorts and T-shirts. We gazed from the bus windows, happy to be there. Ed Sprague married one of those girls.

  And I returned for my junior year at Michigan, which, due to the June Major League Baseball draft, I knew could be my last. Most of us would meet again the following summer in preparation for the Olympics. I’d miss them. The experience had been roundly rewarding. We parted with the knowledge that we’d grown as ballplayers and with the confidence that, together, we could not be intimidated.

  Feeling pretty good about myself back in Ann Arbor, I began the fall semester. I returned to my routine, beginning with classes and then afternoon workouts in the weight room, the path to which led me directly through the athletic department. A voice boomed from behind me.

  “What the hell?”

  I turned. It was John Falk, trainer for the football team.

  “Bo is pissed,” he spat.

  “What? Why?”

  “Compared him to Castro?” he said, his eyes wide. “You gotta be kidding me. He’s looking for you.”

  I flushed, thanked Falk for the warning, and avoided the athletic department for a month. When I figured the smoke had cleared, I took my chances and returned to my regular route, through the athletic offices.

  “Abbott!”

  Like he’d been lying in wait for a month.

  “Abbott!”

  He stomped down a flight of stairs, walked straight up to me and thrust his face to within inches of mine.

  “What is this Castro stuff?” he demanded.

  “Coach, I dunno. I didn’t mean it.”

  Schembechler had always been so nice to me. Once, in a newspaper story, he’d said I could probably play quarterback for him had I wanted to. It wasn’t true, but I’d appreciated the sentiment. Now … this.

  For ten seconds—it seemed like a month—he didn’t move. Just stared at me, his face taut and his eyes hard, and had he risen up and bitten my head off at that very moment, leaving my headless corpse on the floor of the athletic department for the cleaning crew to bag and discard, I would not have been surprised.

  Finally, he blinked.

  “Are you getting to class?” he ordered.

  “Yessir.” Meekly.

  “Then get out of here,” he commanded, and flung his hand in the direction of one exit or another.

  Dismissed, I weaved toward the door.

  The coming months seemed a buildup to amateur draft day, June 1. Even through the summer, idle chatter on the buses and in the hotel rooms was filled with speculation on who would go where. We dreamed of big signing bonuses, the towns we’d play in, and someday making it to the big leagues. We’d never been closer, yet it all seemed still so far away, as if one of those clunky yellow buses were carrying us there. Up a long hill. In first gear. With a balky clutch.

  Before long, I was back in Indianapolis for another banquet. It was early March, when the Sullivan Award was announced. The award honored the top amateur athlete in the nation. Properly, I thought, my seat was at the farthest end of the dais. A baseball player had never won. This was for elite athletes, most often individual athletes, and while I appreciated the gesture of the nomination—which came with the Golden Spikes Award—I figured I was there to fill out the front table. Between the trophy and me sat the likes of boxer Kelcie Banks, hurdler Greg Foster, David Robinson again, swimmer Janet Evans, volleyball player Karch Kiraly—all deserving. Me, I was just hoping the food was good.

  The gentleman from my host family who had picked me up from the airport mentioned that the last time he’d hosted, it was for the eventual winner. I apologized ahead of time for breaking his streak.

  So I was astonished when the previous year’s winner, the heptathlete Jackie Joyner-Kersee, read the name of the honoree: Jim Abbott.

  Honestly, I was so far away I could barely hear her. Then I didn’t really believe her. The Sullivan honors athletic achievement, along with “those who have shown strong moral character.” I assumed they hadn’t known about the duck.

  When I arrived at the
microphone, other than thanking my parents, who were in the audience, along with my teammates and coaches, I could think of only an old joke, one that always got a laugh: “I’m not an athlete. I’m a baseball player.”

  I won nine games my junior season, bringing my three-year record at Michigan to 26-8. The team won forty-eight games in 1988, won the regular-season Big Ten title, and lost—again—in the NCAA regional. With the draft coming, and with another long summer of baseball ahead, this time in preparation for the Olympics, I believed I was done pitching at Michigan. Part of me wished it could go on forever, but the time had come for another fateful step.

  I knew Scott Boras a little. At Coach Middaugh’s request, he’d spoken to the team during the season, educating us on an agent’s responsibilities, what to look for in an agent, and how to protect one’s amateur standing through the draft process. He represented Cris Carpenter, as well as a number of players on the USA Baseball team, guys whose opinions I respected, and he was impressively informed. Before the draft, Boras traveled to Flint to meet with my parents and me. He was young, polished, smart, and sure of himself, and very sure of me.

  “You could pitch in the major leagues tomorrow,” he said.

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” I said.

  We went back and forth like that.

  “Jim,” he said, somewhere between impatient and amused, “I’m not just being nice. You have an out pitch, the cutter. You have big-league velocity. Not only could you pitch in the big leagues, you could win there.”

  “Oh,” I said, “I don’t think so.”

  Mom, a lawyer herself, liked that Boras, in 1988 relatively new to the field of sports agents, had a law degree. And Mom and Dad liked that Boras explained precisely how he could advise us while not risking my final year of eligibility at Michigan, were it to come to that.

  He was thirty-five, but already had begun to challenge baseball’s long-standing draft paradigm, in which the professional franchise told the player what he was worth, and the player, after some halfhearted negotiating, reported to work. The idea was the player was supposed to be thrilled and flattered to be offered the job. Boras, who’d played four seasons in the minor leagues with the St. Louis Cardinals and Chicago Cubs, had other thoughts and already had rankled some big-league brass with his own ideas. He was aggressive and tough in ways I was not, kept the conversation on baseball and away from marketing my “story,” such as it was, and would be deft at filtering out the distractions peripheral to the baseball side of things.