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This is a production of WKNO-Memphis.
Production funding for "Sports Files" is made possible in part
by..
My guest today on "Sports Files" is former Major League Pitcher
Jim Abbott.
♪♪♪
The Memphis Tigers hoop season came to an end last weekend,
and later on in the show I'll give you some parting shots,
but first he's one of the most inspirational athletes of all
time.
Jim Abbott not only defied great odds to become a collegiate
All-American, but astronomical ones to pitch in the big
leagues, and do so, with success.
Recently, Jim paid a visit to Memphis,
and I had a chance to sit down and talk with him about then and
now.
♪♪♪
Jim, thank you so much for being with us.
Really appreciate you being here.
My pleasure.
Let's talk about what you're doing now and that's
motivational speeches around the country.
And I'm sure when you started out maybe it was something..
Eh, I'm not so sure if I want to do this.
But it's really caught fire for you and you're enjoying it.
Well, I'm here for the big Boy Scout night at the Peabody
Hotel.
And you know, a lot of people know my story.
I was born missing my right hand and I grew up learning to do
things a little bit differently.
And because of those differences,
I turned to sports.
You know, I wanted to be like everybody else.
I wanted to be on a team.
I wanted to fit in.
Baseball in particular was something that meant a lot to me
and I ended up being pretty good at it.
So, I played for a while and ended up in the major leagues.
Played there for a while and then finished up my career a
little bit earleir than I wanted to.
And some people came to me and said,
"Jim, you should tell your story.
"You should open up a little bit about how it was to grow up the
"way you did.
"How it was to learn to play baseball the way you did."
And so I've tried to do that over the past few years and it's
going pretty well.
You know, I just try to tell people.
I try to express how much I believe is possible.
You know, so many of the great things in my career came after,
you know, real disappointing low-lights.
There were these highlights right after these lowlights.
So, I just try to get people to believe in what is possible,
what can happen.
I also would imagine that you express that in your
autobiography which came out last April.
The same sort of message and some great stories,
I'm sure, along the way.
Yeah, I mean, there was so many great things.
I was so lucky to experience, you know,
so many things in the game of baseball.
You know, whether it was little league,
high school.
I played at the University of Michigan which was a dream come
true for me.
I played on the United States teams.
I was here in Millington, Tennessee for two summers
training for the panamerican team.
We played on the olympic team in 1988.
Had some great memories.
Some of the great baseball experiences of my life happened
on those USA teams.
And then I got to play in the major league.
You know, I played in California with the Angels.
I played on the east coast with New York.
I played in Chicago with the White Sox and the Brewers in
Milwaukee, so, I got a chance to see baseball from so many
different perspectives.
And within that career, there were some great moments.
You know, we won a gold medal with the '88 Olympic team.
And you know, I won 18 games one year in the major leagues.
But there were great struggles, too.
And I lost 18 games one year in the major leagues.
And so, the book and my speaking in some ways is I try to put all
that together and say, "Okay, you know what?
"There were these great moments.
"There were these tough moments.
"But what did you learn?
"What did you take away from it?"
Let's go back to your days as a kid growing up in Michigan.
How did you do this?
How did you have the courage to go out there.
And you know how kids can be.
They can be pointing fingers and saying things.
And how did you have that courage to do that,
to be able to go out there and give it a shot and not worry
about what other people thought?
You know, I don't know that I always did have the courage.
You know, I struggled.
You know, I struggled with the hurtful things that are said on
the playground.
You know, I was as susceptible or maybe more so as any kid to
hearing some of the things that you hear.
But where I was lucky was I had great parents.
You know, I had a great mom and dad who had a lot of courage,
who had a lot of belief, who raised me instinctually and
didn't shield me away from those experiences.
You know, they knew that those were going to happen whether you
were one-hand, two-hand.
Whatever it was going to be, you know,
you were going to come across some tough times.
But the important thing was what were you going to take away from
it.
Could you bounce back from it?
Were you going to let those things take you down or are you
going to continue to get stronger by them?
And so, my courage comes from my parents who will always be my
heroes.
You lean on your parents for everything especially
emotionally as you said your courage.
From a physical standpoint of what you were able to do as a
kid learning how to play the game with one hand,
who did you lean on for that?
Well, you know, there were a lot of different..
There were a lot of different influences when I was growing
up.
I say to people all the time, I come from the great town of
Flint, Michigan.
(laughter) And it gets a chuckle because a lot of people know
Flint's a tough town.
Sure is!
But it's a great sports town.
Because of the difficulties, there's a lot of avenues for
kids to go to the gyms at night, get off the street,
play basketball.
So, there was a lot of great coaches and a lot of great
people who are really in to sports that are really in to
high school sports and little league.
And so, there was always somebody there who was willing
and optomistic enough to help me to learn to do things
differently.
Exactly like you said.
You know, the creativity to learn to tie my shoes.
You know, there was no paradigm to follow.
Right.
So my second grade teacher helped me with that.
And my dad helped me to learn to switch the glove on and off and
hold the bat.
And you know, I had a high school football coach who made
me play football, literally dragged me on to the varsity
field and said, "You're going to be our back-up quarterback this
year."
And you know, it was that kind of encouragment,
that kind of creativity and belief that made all the
difference in my life.
Jim, when was the moment that you said to yourself,
"I can do this.
"There's no doubt in my mind."
And the moment that you were accepted by your peers,
friends of yours, not guys that weren't as friendly and they
said, "Wow, this kid's pretty good."
You know, one of the big milestones in my life was
playing here in Millington, Tennessee.
USA baseball?
With USA baseball.
I played at the University of Michigan.
And after my sophomore year, we had a good program.
We were playing Division I and I had done pretty well that year.
But I came down here to Millington,
Tennessee and we went over those naval barracks and the whole
team, it was the USA baseball try-out.
And I looked around and there was Frank Thomas and Greg Olson
and all these great players from college baseball that I had only
heard about and read about.
And when I went out there in the try-outs and did pretty well and
made that team and competed with those guys for an entire summer,
that was the first time I really started to believe that I could
be as good as anybody.
Sullivan Award winner, what was that like?
Unreal.
You know, I went to the Sullivan Award dinner and you know,
the Sullivan Award was supposed to be given out to good
athletes.
The best amateur athletes.
So that usually doesn't apply to baseball pitchers.
But yeah, I went to the dinner expecting nothing sitting at the
end.
And when Florence Joyner Kersee called my name,
I couldn't believe it.
You got picked in the first round..
Was it seventh or eigth by the Angels?
I mean, did that just blow your mind?
Yeah, it did.
It did in some ways.
Coming from Flint, the Tigers had always kind of been who I
looked up to.
They were sort of baseball, major league baseball.
And the Angels drafted me, you know,
this team I didn't know a whole lot about out of the west coast.
And they had told me they were going to draft me.
I had talked to them before.
But until you actually get that phone call on the morning,
you know.
Hey, I'm going to get that chance.
I'm going to get the chance that I knew my friend Tino Martinez
was going to get and Andy Benes was going to get.
And you know, it was an exciting time.
Jim, a terrific career in major league baseball.
You threw the no-hitter with New York.
You won a lot of games.
Why so successful?
(laughter) You know, I was fortunate to have a good left
arm.
I had good stuff when I was younger.
I really, you know, I had a good moving fastball on the inside
part of the play and a slider and a curveball.
I had some great coaching.
And that was a fun year.
That was a fun year.
And it's rare that you get to any point in your life where you
step in to it and you know I got this.
You know, I know what I need to do and I can do it against the
very best there is.
And there were a few games that year that I felt like that and
it was a wonderful feeling.
I remember watching you pitch so many times and having to switch
the glove which is an amazing feat in itself.
You're talking about big league players and these hitters that
are ferocious.
Did you ever have?..
How many times were you hit with a comeback or were you?
And were there ever really close calls because you got that extra
timing to have to put the glove on the other hand.
You know, if they hit it hard enough,
I ducked like everybody else does.
(laughter) But I did get hit hard one time.
I mean, I had various ground balls and different things that
hit me in the chins.
And those were more painful than they look.
But Frank Thomas, who was my teammate here.
I keep talking about the USA team maybe just because I'm
thinking about it so much.
But Frank Thomas who was a teammate on the PanAm team,
I faced him when I was with the Yankees and he was with the
White Sox.
And he hit a fast ball.
I literally, I heard it but I never saw it.
And it hit me right in the leg.
Ow!
I was lucky that where it hit me,
it didn't break anything.
I had a bad bruise.
I stayed in the game and he teased me a little bit about how
hard he hit it and everything.
But I was very lucky.
You know, there's some balls, I don't care.
One hand, two hand, you know, there's just so little time to
react.
You mentioned the Yankees, perfect segue.
You throw a no-no in the pinstrips for the Bronx Bombers.
Is that the highlight of the major league career?
I would imagine.
Yeah, in some ways for one game.
You know, it's another one of those.
I sort of dislike the adjective 'unreal' because it's so,
you know, you hear it so much.
But it really was.
But it was real!
But the feeling was so unreal, you know.
It was, you get that last out and the momentum builds in a
no-hitter.
And the Yankee fans..
The fact that it happened in Yankee Stadium is..
I know there's a lot of people who don't like the Yankees,
a lot of people who do like 'em.
But to have something happen in that stadium,
it just seems momentus.
Every out, you know, there was this countdown.
And people were literally jumping up and down in the
stands and cheering on every strike and booing on every ball.
And every out, there was more momentum going towards the end.
And to get that countdown going and to get that last out,
it's, you just look around Yankee Stadium and you think,
"Man, how has this happened?"
What do you remember the most?
Who was the first one to mob ya?
I remember it was a groundball to shortstop.
Randy Velarde was our shortstop and he threw it across the
diamond to one of my favorite teammates,
Donnie Mattingly.
And Donnie threw his hands in the air.
And it was my first year with the Yankees and so Donnie was
the captain.
You know, Donnie was the Yankee baseball personified.
And when I saw him throw his hands in the air and to see his
excitment and I turn towards the catcher that day,
Matt Nokes, who, you know, fo course was there for every
pitch.
And those two guys I remember the most.
After you retired, a decade in major league baseball
accomplishing what you did and now you're married and kicking
back a little bit and relaxing.
Did you ever have any?
You always hear professional athletes.
Oh, they go through withdrawls.
They need that competition.
Did you ever have that or were you fine?
Hey, what I did was pretty amazing and I'm happy with it.
I'm ready to move on to the next phase of my life.
You know, I had that.
I struggled.
I think everybody does a little bit.
Not many people can be Cal Ripken or George Brett,
you know, a guy who just walks away having done everything and
straight to the Hall of Fame, played with one team and all
that.
I did it backwards in my career.
I went directly to the major leagues in the beginning and I
served some time in the minor leagues later on.
And I actually was released by the Angels and went through this
long comeback with the White Sox through the minor leagues.
And in some ways, although I didn't play baseball very much
longer after that experience, in some ways to go back to the
minor leagues and pitch in those ball parks and see baseball sort
of, for the love of it again, allowed me to move on with my
life and say, "I've done everything I possible could to
"play as long and as hard as I could.
"I'm proud it and I'm ready to move on."
And I miss it like everybody does.
But I don't.
It's not debilitating.
What's pretty amazing is you played for 14 years but you
played for two of them twice.
Yeah, I had a lot of friends.
They wanted you back, Jim.
Yeah, I know.
I had friends who believed in me and you know,
we're rooting for me and gave me opportunities.
So, I'm thankful for that.
Jim, for a youngster who has a handicap or a disability,
they want to follow in the footsteps of a Jim Abbott or
somebody else who has been able to accomplish what you have
accomplished.
What would be your few words or a few sentences for them,
words to live by to try to accomplish those goals?
I think back to my own parents when somebody asks me that
question.
My parents had me at a very early age and there was a lot of
uncertainty in their life when they had me.
And I think about those struggles.
You know, I think about where our family was and just which
direction things would go.
Really, in a lot of different ways and a lot of different
levels.
But the one gift my parents gave me through all that uncertainty
was the idea that I was up to the challenge,
you know, that in some ways, my hand was something to be lived
up to, that it was a challenge that I could handle,
that I had the other intangibles to deal with and that it was
something that I could use to move me forward.
And if I could pass that message on to any young kid or really
anybody, it's that we are up to the challenge.
You know, we don't want it.
Challenge scares us but in a lot of times,
it pushes us forward.
Well said.
Final thing, this is called Five for the Road.
So just quick answers, whatever comes to your mind.
And we're going to wrap things up.
What is your favorite sports team of all time?
But you can't choose any of the teams you played for.
And it doesn't have to be baseball.
No question, University of Michigan football.
Big blue!
The wolverines.
But that's not professional, that's collegiate.
Oh, that's professional.
Quickly, professional..
California Angels used to be.
I'll let you slide on that one.
Favorite athlete?
Maybe growing up, who did you idolize?
I idolized Alan Trammell, shortstop for the Detriot
Tigers.
Sure.
I idolized the quarterback from the University of Michigan when
I was growing up, a guy named Rick Leach from my homwtown of
Flint, Michigan.
Who ended up playing baseball, right?
He played professional baseball for a few years and played in
the Tigers and was a big motivator for me and a good
friend.
Favorite music, musician, group?
Who do you like to listen to?
I love Neil Young and Wilco.
I watched Neil Young documentary the other night on,
I think it was HBO or Showtime, whatever it was.
Favorite movie of all time?
Godfather.
One?
And two.
And two.
Three hadn't happened.
(laughter) Shoulda cut it at two.
And finally, your favorite television series of all time?
My favorite television series of all time.
I really, really like 'The Sopranos' - Pretty good series.
Yeah, it's a good series.
Single digit handicap in the game of golf.
Man, oh, man.
You spank me out there man.
Hit 'em well.
Hit 'em long.
Hit 'em straight.
Best of luck with everything with the family.
I know you got a couple of young girls that are growing up very
fast.
Jim, an abolsute pleasure.
Thank you so much for being with us.
We appreciate it.
♪♪♪
One of the many things I've learned over my 30 years in the
Sportscasting industry is don't be too surprised by anything you
see.
From Boxing to MMA, women have made a mark for themselves.
And here in Memphis some ambitious women are competing at
a high level in the sport of Rugby.
The Memphis Women's Rugby Team was formed in 2004 and has been
going strong ever since.
These ladies work fulltime jobs, go to school and some have
family's, but twice a week they hit Tobey field for practice and
gather on Saturdays for games.
Captain Cheryl Coulson is one of those ambitious women I speak
of.
Cheryl, it's cold outside.
It's wet.
What the hecks going through your mind.
Why are you doing this?
Well, I love rugby.
Rugby is something that I've been a part of for a long time
in my life.
I love playing the sport and being with the girls,
the camaraderie on the team.
And I like hitting people.
Hey, and when the ground's wet, it's softer.
(laughter) Now, I was asking some of your teammates,
is it the competition?
Is it the great workout you get?
They said it's really all of the above but a lot of played in
high school.
You played at Southern Illinois and was a club sport then.
So, I guess that competitive, the competitive juices are still
flowing?
You guys want to continue to compete.
Correct, yep!
And I played sports in high school,
as well.
In high school I played basketball and volleyball and
ran track and played summer softball.
So, I've always been an athlete.
And when I got to college, to be able to find a sport that was
practicing, you know, four times a week and playing games on the
weekends and competitive.
You know, it wasn't intramural.
It was a competetive sport playing against other teams.
And to be able to continue doing that as an adult has been great,
too.
But not a much contact in those other sports.
No, it's not.
A little bit different.
So, you came here in '05.
This team was founded in '04 so you've pretty much been with
them for the whole time period they've been in existance.
Correct.
Highs, lows, ups and downs?
Financially, I's sure, it's rough sometimes to fund the
team.
Tell me a little bit about this organization.
Um, I think one of the things for me that I've seen grow is
when I first started playing for the team.
I played in college before.
And when I went to our first game with the team,
they weren't very good.
The Memphis team wasn't very good and I realized I was going
to have to step up and use my knowledge and skills to help
these girls become better.
And over the years, I mean, it's just been tremendous growth on
the team.
Actualyl, in 2011, we went to the national championships in
Virginia Beach which was pretty awesome,
so..
You're the biggest women's rugby team in the state of Tennessee.
yes.
And they have teams all over the place.
Yes, um, now Memphis has always had their own team.
For years, Chattanooga, Nashville,
Knoxville had to combine to make their own team out of three
different cities.
But we've been able to steadily recruit.
You know, we have people who move away,
people who retire.
They get too old, I guess.
You know, people just move on from rugby but we've been able
to steadily recruit and always have our own team here in
Memphis.
Unlike Nashville, Knoxville, Chattanooga,
they all had to combine.
They're finally breaking off now.
And Nashville and Knoxville have their own teams and Chattanooga
is joining in where they fit in with those two teams.
We're here at Tobey Field and you're practicing.
And you're going to play a game here.
But you also play at USA Stadium.
Correct.
For the folks out there who right now,
it's peaking their interest.
They say, "Wait a minute.
"We didnt' even know this existed."
Tell them a little bit about where to go,
when you practice, when the games are.
Okay, yeah, we practice twice a week.
We practice every Monday and Thursday here at Tobey Park.
We practice from 6:30 to 8:30.
And then our games are always on Saturdays.
If they're a home game, they're usually at USA Stadium in
Millington because we get to play with other teams.
The high school teams are out there playing and the mens teams
are out there playing.
And to have rugby all in one central location gets us more
people out there to watch, too.
For those who don't know the sport,
describe the sport and then just briefly how it works once the
game starts.
Um, so one of my favorite quotes that they use on one of their
first flyers to recruit people for rugby in Memphis was,
"It's like a sorority but you get to hit people."
(laughter) And you know, that kind of defines rugby.
It's got that camaraderie like I was telling you earlier.
These girls are my family.
And rugby is a contact sport.
It's full contact sport with no pads,
no helmet.
You got your cleats and a mouthguard is what you're out
there with.
You got 15 girls on each team at any given time.
And the girls range from really small girls to really big girls.
And we're looking for girls of all different sizes to come out
and play.
We're always recruiting and want new players.
And if you don't know anything, that's okay.
You know, we'll teach you everything you need to know.
When I first came out in college,
I didn't know anything about rugby.
I learned everything from the girls that were out there.
I'd never seen a game.
I'd never played a game.
But I practiced with them for three weeks and got out there
and played and it was awesome.
Do you have a website or how can a young lady who's interested
get in contact with you?
Um, we do have a website.
It's Memphiswomensrugby-dot-com.
And that's going to have all of our contact information,
you know, e-mail addresses and that kind of things to get a
hold of us.
And then we're also on Facebook.
We have a Facebook page, Memphis Women's Rugby,
as well on there.
And yeah, look over the e-mails.
There's going to be an e-mail from me.
I'm the captain of the team.
It's going to list my name with my e-mail address and you can
just click on it and shoot me an e-mail and I'll give you all the
details you need to know.
Alright, you've mentioned contact and hitting at least
three times during this interview.
Here's the thing though.
Football, pads, boxing sometimes,
or at least amateur, you have the helmets,
not professional.
But there's no padding here!
So obviously, there's going to be a lot of injuries.
You suffered one last year pretty bad.
And you come right back.
Tell everybody about that.
I did.
Last year on March 31 of last year,
I tore my ACL and I had reconstructive surgery.
And I was able to come back after good physical therapy.
I was able to come back six months after and I'm back
playing again which feels great.
I'm glad to be back out on the field.
It says an awful lot about you and obviously rehabilitation but
also, the great athlete that you are.
I mean, you talk about a workout.
This is a workout, right?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
And you know, not are we only out here two times a week
working out with each other but I'm always encouraging the girls
to do things on their own, you know,
go running, you know, do a Zumba class,
you know, lift weights, whatever you need to do to workout in
your freetime because I need you practive your skills out here.
And so, I really need you to do your workout on your own,
as well, so that when it comes to game day,
we're all on the same page.
You've won a lot of trophies for winning different tournaments.
You mentioned the 2011 was a banner year for you guys.
So, that's the goal, not only to be good in the city but to make
a name for yourself outside the city.
Oh, yeah.
The national championships, that was pretty awesome because there
were teams from all over the country.
And we're Division II but the stuff above us is Division I.
And there's the premier legue and we got to play.
You know, we play the Divison II teams but we got to see the
Premier league and the Division I girls play from Chicago and
Texas and California.
We played against a team from California and that was pretty
awesome.
And we relly got our name out there nationally that year.
But we also play in tournaments in Nashville,
Tennessee.
And there is a tournament in Carbondale,
Illinois that we play in every year.
You go back home.
I get to go back home which is nice,
yeah.
My family always like to come down and watch in that
tournament, too.
You guys have a fall season.
You have a spring season.
You told everybody about when you play and when you practice.
They're having fun out here.
You see the smile on her face throughout this interview.
Cheryl, thank you so much.
An abosolute pleasure and continue success.
We hope this will give you some exposure because it's terrific
what you guys are doing.
That's awesome.
Thank you.
The Tigers lost to Michigan State last Saturday,
and saw their basketball season end at 31-5.
And while preseason expectations may have come up a bit short,
Josh Pastner won his first NCAA Tourney game as Memphis coach,
while also leading his team to a perfect 19-0 mark in their final
season in Conference USA.
And while nobody should be satisfied,
nobody should be disapointed either.
And with a top tier recruiting class coming in for next season,
things may only get better.
And that will do for this week.
We'll see you next time.
♪♪♪