Imperfect: An Improbable Life

by Jim Abbott

It wasn’t that I was a long shot to make the Angels, to become one of the few modern-day players to go from a college campus to a major-league roster. The fact was, I had no shot. I was going to start the season in Midland, Texas, Double-A ball, get my bearings, sharpen up my curveball, learn to be a pro. The decision had been made. In the early meetings leading to camp—manager Doug Rader, pitching coach Marcel Lachemann, bullpen coach Joe Coleman, general manager Mike Port would convene often—my name would not come up. I was going to the minor leagues.

  By February 1989, I’d signed for $200,000 (exactly what Don Welke had recommended to the Blue Jays three years earlier), skipped my senior season at Michigan, and won a gold medal in the Olympics. And then I’d show up in spring training to a major-league clubhouse with not just something to prove, but everything to prove. I was starting over.

  From Flint, I packed a single suitcase and flew to Orange County, checked into a hotel across from Anaheim Stadium, did a press conference in which the questions included, “So, Jim, any other handicaps in the family?” and then reported to the bullpen in right field, where maybe a dozen of Lachemann’s pitchers were preparing for camp. The field had been prepped for a motocross event, giving the experience a Mad Max vibe.

  Blyleven was there, along with Finley, Kirk McCaskill, Harvey, Fraser, Stew Cliburn, some others. For two weeks, we’d throw, work out, and then I’d walk back across the street and play Donkey Kong on Nintendo until I fell asleep. I had no car, no friends, and nowhere else to go. One afternoon I was invited to join Harvey, Fraser, and Cliburn for an afternoon in Newport Beach, where Finley had a condo. Harvey was from North Carolina by way of Soddy-Daisy, Tennessee. Cliburn was from Jackson, Mississippi. Finley was from Monroe, Louisiana. When they got to talking, I couldn’t understand anything they said. They pretty much lost me at, “Son,…” And that was the extent of my field trips.

  By the time I was picking up a word here and there, we’d driven to Mesa, Arizona, for spring training. Gene Autry Park had three full fields, a half-field where the writers played Wiffle ball at dusk, a bare locker room, a small building for the front-office staff, and a mobile home for the beat writers. The major-league players dressed toward the front of the locker room, where the lockers were large enough to store their gear. In the back, the rest of us made do with narrower lockers. More like large cubbies, actually, which we shared with another guy. I did my best to keep my head down and my mouth closed and my sweaty stuff away from my locker mate’s, then I went home in the afternoons to the Rodeway Inn, where I roomed with the bullpen catcher.

  The Angels, it turned out, were a fascinating, bizarre, intimidating, impressive amalgam of baseball personalities, like nothing I’d ever seen. McClure, one of many in that small, muggy room who would come to have a profound influence on my life, one morning noted my bemusement with it all and said, “Look around, kid. It may never be this good in your career again. And you will never have a manager like this again.”

  He was right. I hoped I made it to the big leagues one day so I could be part of it.

  The manager, Doug Rader, was an imposing cigarette-smoking, snuff-dipping, Machiavelli-reading, gruff old soul who laughed loud, sometimes growled louder, and trusted his men to be men. Baseball men.

  The pitching coach, Marcel Lachemann, was part father figure, part friend, part pitching guru, part gray-eyed taskmaster. When he talked about pitching, I felt like I should chisel his words into stone and drag the tablets to the mound with me.

  The hitting coach, Deron Johnson, was a well-forearmed former power hitter who delivered batting tips in gravelly whispers from one side of his mouth, and pulled on a cigarette from the other, even after he’d been diagnosed with cancer.

  The future Hall of Famer Bert Blyleven seemed so old I—at twenty-one—could barely believe it. His face was old. His body was older. He was irreverent, bawdy, brilliant, caring to the point of being sweet and, as soon as you believed that, he’d set your shoe on fire. As a pitcher and as a prankster, he knew every trick. I assumed it was because he’d been around so long he’d invented at least half of them.

  The part-time coach, Jimmie Reese, had played three major-league seasons in the early 1930s with the Yankees, where he was a teammate of Lou Gehrig’s and a roommate of Babe Ruth’s. He’d wryly correct that he actually was a roommate of Ruth’s luggage. A generous man and storyteller, he possessed a personality that transcended generations and—in his late eighties—wielded a fungo bat with a sharpshooter’s precision.

  The general manager, Mike Port, was so gravely earnest I avoided him in order to limit the intensely awkward conversations. Yet, later in my career he sent warm notes saying how proud he was of me.

  The public relations man, Tim Mead, was a hardworking and loyal confidant to every man in the room, who bled whatever colors the Angels were wearing that year, whose human touch extended from owners to sportswriters to fans, and whose heart wouldn’t have fit in one of those little lockers.

  The veteran, McClure, was a Harley-riding hardball philosopher whose left-handedness extended to his sense of humor and view of the world. He feared nothing and no one.

  The Chief, Chuck Finley, was called “Chief” because that’s what he called everybody. With a wit as sharp as his split-fingered fastball, he accumulated strikeouts at about the same rate he did interest from women.

  The designated hitter, Brian Downing, was a tough, quiet, muscled, hard-swinging guy who had almost no interest in young players. Not surprisingly, we didn’t hang out much. He scared me a little.

  The catcher, Parrish, was an amazingly large man—who, it should be noted, preferred one of those old-school metal cups. That, too, was large. In fact, it reminded me of a tractor seat.

  The ace, Mike Witt, was the All-Star pitcher, an intense guy who’d won 100 games by then, once threw a perfect game, and whose signature curveball was christened—by none other than Reggie Jackson—as “The Mercedes Bends.”

  And Kirk McCaskill became my best friend. A wonderful athlete, he poured all he had into everything he did. As my career progressed, along with my life, I’d often ask myself, “What would Mac do here?” Even if it didn’t turn out well, I’d know I did the right thing. Though he’d pitched for only four seasons in the big leagues, McCaskill was mature and thoughtful. Over dinner, he felt like a big brother. At the ballpark, he was closer to a mentor.

  At the moment, though, they were guys I hardly knew. They were laughter from the other side of the room, and inside jokes I didn’t get, and holders of knowledge that came with long columns of statistics on the backs of their baseball cards, some of which I still had in a cardboard box back in Flint.

  The experience—everything from sharing their fielding drills to standing in line with them for morning cereal—was overwhelming. They were so sure of themselves. And my presence there was a curiosity. Some veteran pitchers were skeptical of the Angels’ decision to have me in camp, but were kind enough to keep it to themselves. A gold medal didn’t rate here and neither did a big signing bonus. Paying one’s dues did. Getting big leaguers out did.

  On day one, I was assigned a very blue uniform with the number 60 on the back, some very red spikes and, eventually, a pitcher’s mound in the bullpen, where I threw first not to Lance Parrish or any of the other catchers in camp, but to Lachemann’s brother, Bill, a very nice, very capable fifty-four-year-old man. The veteran pitchers got loose and searched for their mechanics and began their progression toward Opening Day. Further down the line of mounds, I was airing it out, throwing as hard as I could, justifying the first-round decision with every fastball, and trying to make Bill’s old, overstuffed mitt pop authoritatively, which it didn’t, no matter how hard I tried. The thing looked—and sounded—like a throw pillow.

  When I was done, Bill nodded curtly and went off looking for Marcel, who he found near the locker room.

  “That son of a bitch!” Bill sputtered.

  “Who?” Marcel asked.

  “Abbott,” B
ill answered. “What the hell you trying to do to me?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s about ninety-four and it’s cuttin’!”

  And Bill held up his arm, where welts were raising on his wrist and forearm.

  Marcel smiled.

  “Well,” he said, “maybe we’ve got something here.”

  Maybe I’d overdone it by a little. I was too busy trying to impress the coaches and the big leaguers to notice. Not only did my little locker have to fit all my belongings (along with my locker pal’s belongings), it seemed I’d also brought a few extras to camp. Questions, mostly. Was my stuff good enough? Did I have to elevate my game? Did I need new pitches? Better pitches? Where did I stand next to all these guys, these great hitters and established pitchers who were playing a game I suspected was more refined than mine?

  I kept throwing, lapped up every suggestion from Lach, and threw again. In between, I’d report to the media mobile home and do my duty there, as well. The place was getting crowded. So eager was I, when a reporter—Jerome Holtzman, the veteran baseball writer from the Chicago Tribune—rather bluntly informed me I was not physically equipped to execute rundowns, I dedicated hours to practicing rundowns. Fortunately, the security guard at the clubhouse entrance offered no tips; I’d have been on the field all day.

  I was eventually assigned to Parrish, which I considered a kind of promotion. I threw well. My cutter was firm and sailing. Twice when the ball ran harder than he anticipated, Parrish sprang from his squat, scraped off his mitt, and shook his howling left thumb. Generally, bullpen sessions rate just above shoe polishing when it comes to spring training events. This, however, was affirming. The cutter—its velocity and late run—was unusual here, in big-league camp, too. When the Angels began their exhibition schedule, when we bused to Yuma, Arizona, and carloads of reporters and photographers trailed behind, I pitched a morning B game, bringing another revelation. The cutter was going to be better against professional wood than it had been against college aluminum. The hitters were better and stronger, but their bats were not. I broke a few bats that morning, then four or five in my next game. Right-handed hitters couldn’t keep the cutter off their hands, so I kept throwing it, and rode it deeper into spring training.

  Near the end of camp, one starter was injured. Another wasn’t pitching well. When the Angels picked up and moved to Palm Springs to finish their spring schedule, Lach had an idea what Rader was thinking. He suggested they not rush the Abbott kid, to allow some time for the curveball and slider to come, to at least let him get a feel for the pro game.

  “Bullshit,” Rader told him. “Let’s see what he can do. What’s he going to learn that he hasn’t? What’s he going to learn in the minor leagues? Is he emotionally resilient? Is he physically capable? What other prerequisites do you have to have to pitch at the major-league level? So, all spring he’s in Jose Canseco’s kitchen and Mark McGwire’s kitchen. What more do you want?”

  The unthinkable was unfolding.

  THE TELEPHONE RANG just after breakfast in my room at the Gene Autry Hotel. It was Lach. He asked me to meet him in the lobby. Kind but firm, Lach could be counted on to do the right thing, and generally not the risky thing. He had been a relief pitcher in the major leagues back around the time I was born and clearly knew what he was talking about and understood the mind of the pitcher. The older guys respected him and the younger guys—Finley, Harvey, McCaskill—adored him. I’d grown to share their loyalty to him. All I knew was that he was waiting. When I turned the corner he looked serious. I wondered how many players had been sent to the minor leagues in this very lobby. I sat down. He leaned toward me, elbows on his knees.

  I’d begin the 1989 season in the major leagues, he said, in the starting rotation, behind Blyleven, Mike Witt, McCaskill, and Finley. He said I’d made the team on ability, not to sell tickets for a starved franchise that had rarely measured up to the Dodgers up north. He said the team was put together to win, and that’s why I’d be on it. He said that no matter what happened, good or bad, that I should not panic, because the club wouldn’t. I refrained from hugging him down there in the lobby in front of all those people. Lach, a sentimental guy, looked closer to tears than I was.

  I walked to my room a big leaguer.

  Floated, actually.

  All those levels, from the playground, to Little League, to high school, to college, to the Olympic team, like my mother said, had been gifts. From where, I didn’t know. From my parents, I guessed. From the people who didn’t give me a chance, and the many more who did. From this thing that I was born with, and my refusal to give in to it, or my obsession with it, or my fight for it, I didn’t know which. All three, maybe.

  Now there were no more levels, only big ballparks and grown men who played baseball for a living, who put roofs over their families by hitting pitchers like me.

  Now there was only making something of it.

  Tim Mead gave me number 25. He said Don Baylor had worn it and that he admired Baylor when he had been an Angel. Rader gave me the locker between Blyleven and McClure, so there’d be no quiet corner for me to dissolve into. When the crazy stuff happened, it would splatter all over me. Finley gave me the spare room in his Newport Beach condo. A car dealer gave me a Toyota to drive to the ballpark, a somewhat boxy sedan that more than once earned the observation “That your dad’s car?” More often, then, we took Finley’s Nissan 300ZX.

  Anaheim was a bit of a circus.

  The idea that I might be a decent way to sell tickets wasn’t new. The media had us surrounded on that topic. No one from the club mentioned it to me, and when reporters questioned Rader, he was pointed in his response. First, he was angry at the callousness of the accusation. Then he got madder.

  “Never,” he said, “never has that been brought up. Never. What a bunch of crap that is. He is better than anything we have. He is one of our top five starters. So, start him.”

  My first Opening Day, Chicago White Sox and Angels, Anaheim Stadium, and I was captivated by the sun (96 degrees at game time), the crowd (nearly 34,000 in the old ballpark), the matchup (veterans Mike Witt versus Jerry Reuss), and the start of my professional career, which for the moment meant soaking in all the cool stuff going on, digging my first big-league uniform, casually scanning the stands for hot girls, and occasionally keeping one eye on the game.

  So I’d been pretty distracted when, confronted by White Sox catcher and tough guy Carlton Fisk three hours later, I was unsure if I was supposed to punch him, grab him and hope somebody else punched him, or go find a middle infielder and rethink the whole thing.

  It all happened fast. One minute we were in a close game, the next we weren’t, and then White Sox cleanup hitter Ivan Calderon was heaving his helmet and charging the mound, where McClure waited.

  With a frantic clamor, and led by Rader, teammates raced past me and onto the field. I obediently followed. There, we met an equal number of White Sox, as their dugout—and both bullpens—had also cleared out. It was in that crowd near the mound where I met Fisk, who seemed cranky, and I quickly decided to do nothing that would provoke him. Meantime, Rader was in the middle of everything, and not as a peacemaker. That, as I learned, was his nature. There was only one way to play the game—and only one way to conduct yourself. Rader would defend both to his last breath. I’d never played for such a man.

  McClure had taken the ball in the ninth inning. We were down, 4–2. The top of our order would be up in the bottom of the ninth. We had hope. But the White Sox scored five runs against McClure. He’d seen a lot of baseball, been in every situation, and had his own ideas about hardball decorum. The White Sox were taking some good rips against him, the last being Harold Baines’s long home run to right field. Mac believed their hitters had become a touch comfortable in the batter’s box. Actually, “they were swinging out of their asses” is the way he put it. So, he reared back and threw a fastball that hit Calderon square in the back. And all hell broke loose.

&
nbsp; We had more brawls that season under Rader than I had in the rest of my career combined, probably. Maybe he was establishing a team demeanor. Maybe he had a group that leaned toward violence, or maybe we simply built a reputation for it. But it kept happening, and Rader kept leading us out there, and a team that wasn’t supposed to do much spent some time in first place that summer and stayed in contention to the end of September.

  They gave me the ball on April 8, on a Saturday night at Anaheim Stadium.

  Without a day in the minor leagues, in a clubhouse of strong-willed veterans and big personalities who would have significant and lasting influences on my life and my pitching, I embarked on a big-league career that few could have seen coming. Certainly I hadn’t, and certainly not this soon. In defiance of Rader, it would be written that I was a publicity stunt, that I was on the opening-day roster to juice the gate, that the Angels needed a gimmick.

  I didn’t believe it and the Angels denied it and no one in the clubhouse seemed to think so. Even so, there certainly was a lot of interest. Nearly 47,000 people piled into Anaheim Stadium for my debut, which was against the Seattle Mariners. I lost, which didn’t seem to matter to anyone but my teammates and me. The club had credentialed 150 writers. Photographers trailed me to the bullpen and policemen stood guard outside the gate while I warmed up. I didn’t pitch well—the Mariners had six hits, drew three walks, forced us into a couple errors—and didn’t make it out of the fifth inning. Mark Langston—who a year later would be a teammate—shut us out for nine innings.

  We lost, 7–0, and yet I had to sit in front of all those writers and television cameras afterward and be the story, which I hated. The elevator doors opened on the third floor and the area outside the press conference room was crowded with cameras and reporters and security guards holding them back, all to get a glimpse of the guy who’d given up six runs in 4 2/3 innings. I smiled the best I could, but told Tim Mead, “I lost. Here I am going to do a postgame press conference.”