'An arena I feel comfortable in'  Jim Abbott returns to baseball

Was he really back? He needed the test of a full season in the majors, and the Milwaukee Brewers have given him a chance to prove himself in the 1999 season. Joel Seguine of U-M News and Information Services interviewed Jim Abbott for Michigan Today in the locker room of the Brewers' spring training facility in Phoenix. Since the start of the season, it's been rocky going for Abbott. Through June 14 his record was 1-5, giving up 72 earned runs per nine innings (ERA), while both starting and relieving for the last-place Brewers. For his career Abbott was, as of June14, 86-105 with a 4.2 ERA.

[Highlights of Abbott's career]

Q: Michigan Today. You had such a wonderful amateur career. What are some of the memories you hold onto from those years?
Jim Abbott: That I had a lot of great friendships is mostly what I remember from baseball. It's part of the reason why I'm playing again; it expands the world you're exposed to and the people you come across. I started seeing some of the world because of baseball, different parts of the country traveling with the University of Michigan, playing with the USA team and moving around. I got exposed to so much.

Q: I remember seeing a picture of you carrying the flag in the opening ceremonies of the Pan Am games That must have been a thrill.
A:Yeah, that was a spine-tingling type of thing, walking into the Indianapolis Speedway. I remember we had to wait a long time before we walked onto the Speedway, and it was packed with thousands and thousands of people. Because we were the host country, the United States was the last to be introduced, so we had to wait for all that as the procession went through. Finally, underneath the grandstand where we were, all the workers and all the volunteers–and there hundreds of them–just erupted in this enclosure we were in. It was just deafening. Everybody started chanting, "U..S..A, U..S..A." And then we walked from there and I had the Flag and I was out front. And we walked up the stairs and the whole Speedway just blew up when they announced, "Los Estados Unidas," and everybody stood up. I still get goose bumps thinking about it.

Q: Your mother and father gave you a lot of support in allowing you to find your own way in athletics as you were growing up in Flint as a boy born without a right hand.
A:Yes, they were very supportive. I'd put it this way: they allowed me to do whatever I wanted, yet they weren't always extremely involved. And I don't mean that in a bad way–I think it was beneficial.

Q: Did anyone teach you how to throw without a right hand?
A: My Dad and I did what was necessary to play catch. We didn't form the basis for a major league career. We just played catch.

Q: Are you limited In any way from throwing certain pitches because you can't hide the ball? Have you had to ask for any special ruling about that?
A: No, I didn't ask, but there was an interpretation of a rule. I never knew anything about it. All of a sudden the Commissioner of the American League was there one day during spring training in my rookie year. I do something where I kind of twirl the ball. You can't really see it. The rule is you can't move the ball to deceive the runner at first base. It's nothing more than guys do inside their glove. Anyway, they cleared it and nobody ever said a word about it.

Q: Do you have any doubts that you should have gone right to the majors, that you might have benefited from some minor league experience?
A: I don't look back on things. You know, you turn different corners and who knows what'll happen. I wouldn't change a thing of what's happened. I had a real bad year in 1996 and that took its toll, but other than that I'm very proud of the things I've done.

Q: You've said that you're aware of the effect you have on other people whether they be disabled or not, and you seem to carry that well. Is that something that's a weight or is it something you carry with pride?
A: Well, my answer to that seems selfish. I really feel that to have an effect, to be someone that can be pointed to as an example, at least on those terms, is to be good [at what I do]. I understand the larger issue, I really do. But the type of example I want to show is not only that you can survive–make it–but that you can flourish. That's what I want to do, and I work hard towards those ends. And if I can answer some letters, if I can meet kids, if I can be involved in a charity, attend events here and there, I'm very happy to do that. But beyond that, I'm no different from anybody else in this room.

Q: Take us back to Yankee Stadium, September 4, 1993, when you pitched your no-hitter against the Cleveland Indians.
A: It was a time when I wasn't pitching particularly well. I actually faced Cleveland the time out before that in their park and was knocked out maybe in the third inning. I was given five days rest and I was facing the Indians again back at home. You know that happens quite a bit. You face a team, then you face them again because of the pitching rotation. It's a mental challenge because if you did well [in the prior outing], there's no guarantee. But if you didn't do well, you're really screwed. So the irony that they'd hit me so hard before, to throw a no-hitter the next time against them, I remember that as being strange. I remember it was a cloudy day. A day game, the kind of game I like to throw.

Q: Was there any point where other players stopped talking to you so they wouldn't jinx you?
A: I don't remember much of that. Scott Kamieniecki ['86], a former Michigan teammate, was with the Yankees then. He and I were joking around a little bit, but I don't usually talk a lot during the games anyway. Sometimes if I feel like I have to relieve the pressure or whatever I will. I think there was a little bit of banter but not much. My wife, Dana, was there, and it was a real thrill giving her a hug afterwards, down m the depths of the stadium. We have very good memories of being in New York that we'll always cherish.

Q: Any lingering thoughts about the very difficult year you had in '96, when you were 2-18 with the Angels?
A: It was tough. Really, there's no other way to put it. On the grand scale--obviously, we're playing major league baseball, making a lot of money--it certainly doesn't compare with some of the other things that people go through in life. But for me--I took it too hard. Maybe that was my personality. Maybe I didn't like being so vulnerable. You come out of it hopefully stronger.

Q: Do you think you did?
A: I'm different. I don't get as caught up as I did. I know what's important to me now. I know that what happens on the baseball field from this point on can never affect that. I worry that it will, I'll be honest. I'm worried that I will get caught up in baseball, like if I'm doing well, projecting this thought of having to be good. I struggled a little bit in the minor leagues last year, but I felt that I was improving, and then last fall I won every time I pitched, and this spring I've pitched pretty well, so it's been good times and you need those. It's fortifymg. But I didn't have any good times in '96, so I didn't have any fortification against the bad.

Q: Your minor league experience last year was your first since you became a pro except for a short stint in Vancouver. Playing with 18-year-olds, riding the bus, what was that like for you?
A: It's something I can't believe that I did, because if you asked me now would you do that, the answer would be no. It was kind of a plan to get to the big leagues [after] a five-week training period. And I thought, I can do it. I can schedule family and I can be here and do this. What it turned into was a long term, a real odyssey. I came across great people, saw a lot of different things, and it wasn't all bad. I don't know why to this day that I did it. I'm glad to be back, and I think my family is, too, but it was a really weird thing.

Q: Wherever you've played it seems your teammates have enjoyed playing with you. Last year, when you came back with the White Sox, you passed the Yankees third base coach, Willie Randolph, as you were heading back to the dugout, and he said, "Welcome back." That kind of thing must feel really good.
A: It does, and I can get, frankly, very emotional about it. This is an arena that I feel comfortable in, you know, sitting here in the clubhouse. The banter and the humor. It's different than it is outside. I enjoy it. I really do. I feel comfortable in the surroundings, and I enjoy the guys from the South and the West and the East and different parts of the world. I'm not always so great at the neighborhood get-togethers, although I like those people, too. But this is where I feel most comfortable. And when I'm not here, I like to be around guys who have played major league baseball. It's the camaraderie.