Last Updated: June 17th, 2026 by Michael Griffin
Remember when Doug Rader was accused of running a “publicity stunt” by starting Jim Abbott in 1989? Thirty-five years later, that take hasn’t aged well.
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All Abbott did was pitch a no-hitter, win an Olympic gold medal, and make everyone rethink what “disability” really means in baseball.
It Began With a Question
According to MLB.com, Abbott’s journey started with a simple question from a reporter: What couldn’t he do? His answer? “I can’t button the darn buttons on my left cuff.”
That’s the thing about Abbott that baseball missed. He wasn’t focused on what he couldn’t do. He was too busy revolutionizing what was possible.
He Changed Minds One Pitch at a Time
Sports Feel Good Stories notes that Abbott didn’t just adapt to baseball – he forced baseball to adapt its thinking. While scouts worried about his fielding, Abbott was busy developing a glove-switching technique so smooth it looked like magic.
In high school, opponents tried bunting on him eight straight times. He fielded seven perfectly. That was the end of that strategy.
He Went From Round 36 to No. 8 Overall
The Toronto Blue Jays drafted him in the 36th round in 1985. He decided to go to college. Three years later, he was the 8th overall pick. Turns out talent has a way of changing minds.
As detailed by Inspire 21, Abbott went straight to the Majors without spending any time in the Minor leagues, which was very rare, especially for a pitcher. The “publicity stunt” won 12 games with a 3.92 ERA in his rookie year.
But Abbott’s greatest achievement wasn’t his ’93 no-hitter for the Yankees. It wasn’t even his Olympic gold medal that he won in the ’88 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. It was his forcing baseball to confront its own limiting beliefs about what makes a “complete” player.
Before Abbott, a one-handed pitcher in MLB seemed impossible. After Abbott, the impossible just needed proper preparation and technique.
He showed that baseball’s traditional metrics for evaluating talent were too narrow. While scouts focused on what he lacked, Abbott was developing innovations that would make him more efficient than many two-handed pitchers.
Don Mattingly captured it perfectly after Abbott’s no-hitter: “I had these huge goose bumps on my forearms… Maybe that would have happened with someone else. Maybe I’d have the same feelings. But I think because it was Jim there was a little something extra.”
He Could Swing the Bat
Oh yeah, he could also hit. He got both his first Major League hit and RBI as a Milwaukee Brewer in ’99. Only the fact that Geoff Jenkins got thrown out at third to end the inning kept fans from seeing Abbott possibly run the bases.
Ironically, Abbott would get another hit and two more RBIs, and they were all off Jon Lieber of the Chicago Cubs … in different games. I guess you could say he had Lieber’s number.
He Changed Baseball’s Thinking on Adversity
That “something extra” wasn’t about overcoming adversity. It was about proving that baseball’s definition of adversity needed an update.
Today’s MLB teams employ analytics departments to find undervalued talent. But Abbott showed us something more valuable: sometimes the biggest barrier to success isn’t a physical limitation – it’s other people’s assumptions about what those limitations mean.
Abbott never saw himself as inspirational. “Whether you’re rich or poor or one-handed or whatever, your own childhood just seems natural, because it’s the only one you know,” he said.
Maybe that’s the real lesson here. Baseball didn’t give Jim Abbott a chance despite his “disability.” His success proved that what we call “disabilities” are often just different ways of getting the job done.
The next time baseball thinks it knows what’s possible, it should remember the “publicity stunt” who threw a no-hitter.