| 2 | Boxman
ID: 571114225
Sun, Jul 13, 2008, 05:34
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Jim Abbott - 20 Years Later
Abbott wonders why, now that he's 40 and long retired from baseball, boys and girls keep writing him letters. Perhaps it's because they know he writes back.
Officially, Abbott is a motivational speaker, hired by corporations such as Prudential, Exxon and Wells Fargo to tell his story. Unofficially, he is the repository for everybody else's story. Abbott receives approximately 20 e-mails or letters a month, all of them heart-wrenching, many of them about children who are missing a hand, or part of a hand, or feeling in a hand. He responds to each one personally.
"To Blaise," reads the note to Blaise Venancio. "I just wanted to wish you the very best of luck with baseball this year. Hopefully you are having a great time playing. I know it is sometimes hard to do things a little differently from other kids. But believe me, if you stick with it, you can be just as good. Always believe. Anything is possible."
Blaise, from Monmouth Beach, N.J., is a natural left-hander who was born with Poland's Syndrome, which cost him the use of his right hand. When he started playing baseball, he wanted to wear a glove on his right hand, like all the other southpaws. His father, Matt, tried five different mitts, bathing them in oil to soften the leather, but Blaise couldn't close any of them. Finally in March, Matt showed Blaise the video of another lefty with a similar problem. Blaise decided then to copy the man in the video.
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