Baseball Notebook: Jim Abbott and Chuck Connors Facts
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by Niteowl049
Jim Abbott
Jim Abbott was the first U.S. pitcher to defeat Cuba in 25 years. He went directly into the Angels' starting rotation without pitching in the Minor Leagues. In high school, he hit seven home runs and batted .427. On top of that, he had a 37.5 yards per punt average as a punter. He was the starting quarterback in the last three games in high school, and threw for six touchdowns and 600 yards in those three games.
In 1993, he pitched a no-hitter for the New York Yankees over the Cleveland Indians, but a week later, he was blasted by George Steinbrenner for not doing the job and questioned his courage. He also blamed Abbott's charity work for his poor performance. That tells me all I ever need to know about George Steinbrenner. He played for the Milwaukee Brewers, and since they were in the National League, he became the first one handed batter in the major leagues since Pete Gray played for the St. Louis Browns over fifty years ago.
Various reasons have been given for his short career with him being unable to hide the ball from batters and runners one of the reasons and some even say he was bunted out of the majors but he says he lost velocity and couldn't make the conversion to a finesse pitcher. All I know is that he made up for his physical limitations by pitching with more heart and showed that a player with a serious handicap can play major league baseball.
Chuck Connors
Chuck Connors may be better known as being the star of The Rifleman, but he was also a Major League Baseball player and a basketball player in the NBA. He was born Kevin Joseph Aloysius Connors on April 21, 1921. While playing for Seton Hall, he picked up the nickname Chuck for telling the infielders to chuck it to him at first base.
After playing four games in Class D Northeast Arkansas League in the Dodgers farm system, he decided he wanted to play college sports at Seton Hall. In 1942, he was signed by the Yankees, but never played a Major League game for them. He joined the Army that year, and for the next three years was a stateside tank training instructor. After being discharged from the Army, he played for the Rochester Royals who would later become the Cincinnati Royals and Kansas City Kings and today are the Sacramento Kings.
The Yankees asked waivers on Connors and he was picked up by the Dodgers again and sent to Newport News of the Piedmont League where he led the league in home runs in 1946 with 17. He played for the Boston Celtics in the 1946-1947 season, but his stats were nothing to brag about with him being a dismal 94 for 380 from the floor and 39 for 84 from the charity line.
His claim to fame in the NBA is that he was the first player to break the glass backboard through no fault of his own, as a very important part of the backboard was missing, and he took a simple set shot that shattered the board. The game was being played at the Boston Arena (not the Boston Garden since a Gene Autry rodeo was being held there). As luck would have it, the backboards were stored in an area behind the bulls, but luckily two drunken cowboys were found and paid a couple of bucks who dodged the bulls and brought out the backboard they needed.
Connors had an excellent Minor League career but in the majors he batted one time for the Dodgers before being traded to the Chicago Cubs, where he also had a lackluster season in 1951 hitting 2 home runs and driving in only 18 runs while hitting .239. He never played in the majors again, but he had fun playing in the Pacific Coast League for the Los Angeles Angels. The following paragraph from his SABR bio project page shows how much fun he had while playing:
He played the 1952 season with the Los Angles Angels, where he is best remembered for his showboating than his playing ability. For example, after hitting one home run, he slid into second base, cart wheeled to third base, then crawled to home plate. These antics added to his "screwball" reputation, where at various times in his minor-league career he threw raw hamburger to rowdy fans at a road game and taunted umpires with Shakespearean quotes.
I can imagine what would happen if he pulled that stunt after hitting a home run with Bob Gibson on the mound; he would find himself flat on the ground the next time at bat. Nobody showed up Gibson.
Connors had a great line about Branch Rickey (the Dodgers owner). "He had money and players and didn't want to see them mix." He received his first big break in Old Yeller when he played Burn Sanderson the owner of the dog. The highlight of his acting career will always be the five years he played Lucas McCain on The Rifleman. He was smart enough to get ten percent of the profits from the show and the show can still be seen in reruns today.
Connors also got involved in politics and the following paragraph from his SABR bio project page tells the story much better than I could:
Connors was active in Republican politics in the 1960s and 1970s. He was a strong supporter of fellow Californian Richard Nixon, who was elected President in 1968, and fellow-actor Ronald Reagan, who was elected governor of California in 1966 and later was elected President in 1980. Connors had a celebrated meeting with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1973, after meeting him at a party at Nixon's Western White House in San Clemente, California. "Spotting Mr. Connors in a denim shirt at the helicopter pad, Mr. Brezhnev rushed over and threw his arms around the tall rugged star, who hugged back and lifted the laughing Communist party leader off his feet," the New York Times reported the greeting. The Connors/Brezhnev bear hug was captured by photographers and ran in many newspapers across the nation.
Connors may not have been a very good baseball player, but attributes his acting success to playing in Los Angeles in the minors and making the connections he needed to get his acting career started. He was told that he could have been the Dodgers first baseman if not for Gil Hodges, but Connors said Hodges could have been The Rifleman so he is happy with the way things turned out.
SABR has a very interesting website at: [1] for those who are interested in reading more biographies like the two players written about today. It is still in the development stages so not every player will be on the list of biographies but it is worth giving a read during these cold winter days while we wait for spring training to start. I barely skimmed the surface of the content available at the site as the biographies there are very detailed.
