How Jim Abbott Conquered Adversity

With Little League starting up, this is one of those things you want to share with all your hopeful baseball stars. When my son Crosby was young Jim wrote this out to him: "To Crosby, You can do anything...Jim Abbott."

Jim is an incredible motivator. To pitch in the Major Leagues with one hand, throw a no-hitter, and not to mention also hit a home run.

Here's a repost of an old story I wrote about Jim and conquering adversity.

--

My favorite stories in sports and in life are when someone faces adversity and turns it into their advantage. If you have a kid in Little League…this is an absolute must watch. As good as pitching a no-hitter and winning a gold medal in the Olympics are, how much better are they if you do it with one hand? That’s what Jim Abbott did:

How often do kids say they can’t / won’t / don’t want to do something? Too often.

My first collectible for Crosby as a kid was signed:

“To Crosby, you can do anything…Jim Abbott.”

I would always refer to that whenever he would talk about what he could and couldn’t do.

Could you even comprehend performing the seemingly simple task of catching a baseball and throwing it back to someone with anything less than two hands? 

Forget that! Imagine hitting major league pitching with one hand! Jim Abbott had people telling him NO his entire life and the only thing he’s done is prove them wrong every day.

If you can’t use this story (or pick-up a copy of Jim’s book) to send a message to a Little Leaguer about hard work…I don’t know what you’re doing.

Here's a great clip of Jim surprising a young baseball player facing similar adversity, in which he is conquering every time he takes the field. 

http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=19357051

 


1 comment


  • I just want to say Thank You to everyone who supported me through the years. My name is Manuel Franco, New Berlin, Wisconsin. My story of how I won the Powerball lottery of $768.4M is a bit of a tale. I have been playing Powerball tickets for 6 years now since I turned 18. I bought my first ticket on my 18 birthday. I was feeling very lucky that day because I had contacted Dr. Odunga Michael to help me with the winning Powerball numbers. I really had that great great feeling that I looked at the camera wanting to wink at it. I only did a tiny part of it and trusted him. He gave me the numbers after I played a couple other tickets along with it for $10. I checked my ticket after the winnings came online and saw the numbers were correct including the Power play. I screamed for about 10 minutes because it felt like a dream. I had won $768.4M. You can check my winning testimony with the lottery officials just with my name search. Thank you Dr Odunga. Well, his email is odungaspelltemple@gmail.com and you can also call or Whats-app him at +2348167159012 so you guys can contact him

    Manuel Franco on

Leave a comment