Imperfect

March 1, 2012
Former Major League pitcher Abbott recounts the ups and downs of his career--and how he managed to succeed despite being born without a right hand. Abbott's athletic success was perpetually viewed through the lens of his disability. His achievements, while impressive, were deemed extraordinary relative to what the average one-handed person might expect to accomplish. Such judgment rankled the principled, hard-working lefty, however, as he recounts in this chronicle of his childhood growing up in hardscrabble Flint, Mich., and subsequent rise to the majors, where he pitched for the California Angels and New York Yankees (among others). Throughout his career, Abbott fought to be evaluated based not on his remarkable ingenuity and dexterity in learning to both pitch and field so well with one hand, but rather on the merits of what he achieved on the mound. He could not, however, fail to acknowledge his status as a hero to the disabled, a burden he willingly bore throughout his career. Overall, Abbott enjoyed a marginally successful pro career with a lifetime record of 87-108. He excelled for a few seasons and even threw a no-hitter in fabled Yankee Stadium, all after being one of the nation's best college pitchers at the University of Michigan; he also won a gold medal in the 1988 Olympics. Still, as much as Abbott sought to be known solely as a pitcher rather than a one-handed pitcher, it's impossible to contextualize his career without acknowledging the incredible odds he overcame. His retrospective is appropriately modest and self-effacing, and able co-author Brown punches up an inning-by-inning recap of the no-hitter, but there's a predictability to the narrative that makes it somewhat less remarkable than it should be. Inspirational paint-by-numbers, but a worthy addition to the category of moving athlete memoirs.

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April 15, 2012
Jim Abbott was born without a right hand. Against all odds, he enjoyed a 10-year major-league pitching career, threw a no-hitter while he was with the Yankees, and won an Olympic gold medal. His career ended prematurely at 31. There was no tragedy. He just couldn't pitch well anymore. With the assistance of Yahoo! baseball journalist Brown, Abbott relates his truly amazing life. His parents, blue-collar kids in Flint, Michigan, had Jim shortly after they left high school. Young Jim didn't like the prosthetic device he was given, and his parents made a brave decision to allow their son to lead a normal life, doing what everyone else did. The missing hand became merely one of life's many challenges. Jim grew up playing sports and even quarterbacked his high-school team briefly. Readers experience his athletic high points as well as the lows, from throwing a no-hitter to mysteriously losing the magic in the latter years of his career. A solid sports autobiography that will inspire as it entertains.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)