how in the world did Abbott manage to get 2 basehits?

Schenk and Abbott sat in the lobby of the Ritz for more than an hour, two guys talking baseball. Schenk recited all of Abbott's big league statistics -- an 87--108 record, 888 career strikeouts and a 4.25 earned run average. "You know," Schenk told him, "it wasn't a very good record." Abbott nodded knowingly. Before thinking "this kid is trying to hurt my motivational speaking business, he must be neutralized."

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how in the world did Abbott manage to get 2 basehits?

Both of them were RBI singles off of Jon Lieber too.

Source

Then they started tossing around names of pitchers to bunt on, or not to bunt on, mostly retired guys. Damon brought up the left-hander Jim Abbott, who succeeded for the Angels, Yankees and White Sox despite having no right hand. (Damon said it would have been unsportsmanlike to bunt on Abbott.) Rivera recalled Abbott taking batting practice for the Yankees, swatting home runs into the bleachers, and one of them talked about how Abbott could switch his glove so quickly that he could snare even the hardest line drives back to the box.

yeah, that would be a "holy crap" moment if it happened in a game.

Especially if Jon Lieber was pitching in relief at Yankees Stadium and Jim Abbott hit a walkoff pinch-hit homer to the upper deck in Game 7.

Not vaguely a great pitcher, but.... does he rank in, say, the top half of all time, perhaps? I'm not sure how (if?) these things are judged stat-wise these days.

Not vaguely a great pitcher, but.... does he rank in, say, the top half of all time, perhaps? I'm not sure how (if?) these things are judged stat-wise these days.

Off the top of my head, I would say without a doubt, absolutely no question.

After looking at bbref to confirm my memory of his stats, it's absolutely no question he's in the top quarter. I'd think he could be top ten, as there are tons and tons of pitchers in MLB history, and 10% of them have not pitched 1600+ innings of a 99 ERA+, with 3 seasons over 120 (two over 140), all of them basically at 200 IP.

Sadly, Jim Abbott joined the Yankees just too late to be managed by Stump Merrill.

Ten-year-old Billy Inserra learned it from a children's book about Abbott, Overcoming the Odds, which Billy chewed on as a baby.

I'm not sure if it was the same book, but I read a book about Abbott in elementary school and he became my favorite baseball player. I stopped following baseball for a while in the mid to late-90s, so my only memories of him are as a damn fine pitcher.

Nope, different book. The other one was Jim Abbott: Against All Odds.

does he rank in, say, the top half of all time, perhaps? I'm not sure how (if?) these things are judged stat-wise these days.

The next frontier. Ranking every single player that has ever put on a uniform.

According to baseball-reference, Abbott ranks seventh among pitchers alphabetically, so there's that. Don Aase is the only one who ranks ahead of him in both name and ERA.

How does this effect his Hall of Fame chances?

I would say he was a "vaguely great" pitcher. He wasn't great, but had many moments of greatness, and a somewhat sustained run of very good. He was certainly vaguely great on Sepetember 4, 1993.

There is a book out by Matthew McGough "Bat Boy: My coming of age with the New York Yankees" on his time in the early 1990s. He says only two players sent the traditional checks to bat boys in 1994 when the players strike/owners refusal to negotiate cancelled the last six weeks of the season. Don Mattingly and Jim Abbott. It was fun to watch him pitch, maneuver the glove on and off his left hand. Great fielding bunts too. Probably only a average pitcher for a few years but fun to watch and root for.
Great article and even better picture in the issue on my favorite tennis player, Anna Kournikova.

An inspiration for us all. Glad to know he still is inspiring kids.

how in the world did Abbott manage to get 2 basehits?

I seem to remember hearing that he had hit .400 in high school or something.

Re: his hitting, he got a triple in spring training once. I want to say it was off Randy Johnson but I may be conflating different events there.

I always found it odd that another guy with one hand came and went from the big leagues with hardly any fanfare at all. I mean, there was one story about him that I saw, on ESPN.com, and I was expecting all kinds of publicity, but it was just like "Sorry, bud, already been done. Being a major league player with only one hand is old hat. Try doing it with NO hands and maybe you'll get some attention."

His BB-ref page doesn't even have a sponsorship, for goodness sake!

This tells us that people are way more inspired by Jim Abbott for being a GOOD major league pitcher than simply for his making it to the major leagues.

Crispix, I was there for Abbott's major league debut (also his professional debut, as he skipped the minors).

It was a mediocre game, but one of the more exciting games I've been to in my life in terms of energy and memorability. The inspiration was there from the beginning -- remember, this was an Olympic hero, and he was notable before he even made the majors.

hmm, interesting to see that Bentz actually batted righty, although his left hand was the good one. abbott batted and pitched lefty, and his bb-ref page says Fields left as well. I wonder if he's the only player whose fielding hand is listed (Bentz' isnt).

His BB-ref page doesn't even have a sponsorship, for goodness sake!

Its $5, go for it! ..... funny that in your entire post which noted the lack of fanfare for the guy, you fail to even mention HIS NAME (it is Chad Bentz)

Abbott's triple came in spring training in 1991 against the Giants (so obviously Johnson wasn't involved).

Bentz pitched for Montreal and Florida, so most members of the media probably never even knew he existed.