Jim Abbott was born without a right hand, which would seem to disqualify a child from dreaming of pitching in the major leagues. Baseball, however, became the place where he learned a different lesson: bodies do not always obey neat assumptions. Abbott taught himself to pitch, switch the glove to his throwing arm in a blink, and field his position with astonishing speed.
He starred at the University of Michigan, won the Sullivan Award as the nation's top amateur athlete, and helped the United States win gold at the 1988 Olympics. Then he made the majors and proved that the novelty people saw in him could not survive contact with performance. He was not there as an inspirational exception. He was there because he could get hitters out.
On September 4, 1993, pitching for the New York Yankees, Abbott threw a no-hitter against Cleveland. The image endures because it is so clean: a man so many people would have counted out standing alone on the mound, solving inning after inning. Abbott's career did not erase hardship. It did something better. It made difficulty visible and then worked right through it.