Losing Becomes A Bad Abbott To Break At 1-14, Angels Pitcher Struggles To Find Answers

The baseball is helium in Jim Abbott’s left hand - it usually ends up in orbit. The California Angel has his Olympic gold medal and his no-hitter, but his newest distinction is a dubious one: losingest pitcher in the major leagues.

His record for the California Angels is 1-14, his earned-run average is nearing 8.00 and that device cynically aimed his way is a speed gun. At Milwaukee in late June, Abbott maxed out at 79 mph, and his manager sent him to a place just north of the minor leagues - the bullpen.

He spent his first two weeks as a reliever dodging the red phone and his last three weeks experimenting with everything but a knuckleball. Then a funny thing happened on his way to the waiver wire: he rejoined the rotation Sunday in Toronto.

His first five innings were a throwback (two hits, no runs), but his sixth inning brought sirens. There were three singles, a walk, a hit batter and two misplayed balls behind him, and, six runs later, the Abbott resume was beginning to look like Anthony Young’s.

“Going 1-14 is comparable to a hitter going 0 for 60 or something,” said an Angels teammate, Randy Velarde, who three years ago caught the last out of Abbott’s hypnotic no-hitter at Yankee Stadium.

Born with one hand, but never one to use disabled parking, Jim Abbott - for the first time in his 28 years - is the victim. “I’ve tried harder this year than any other time in my life,” he said, his voice refusing to crack. “Any other time.”

He may have lost his last 10 decisions, but, somehow, he has not lost his couth.

“Not one guy in here feels sorry for him,” said the Angels’ utility man Rex Hudler. “Not one guy. Before, yeah. We took it personally. I dropped a ball for him in center field that cost him two runs. At the time I was thinking, ‘I’ll go through a wall for this guy,’ and I’m running after this ball thinking, ‘I’ve got to make this catch, got to, got to, got to,’ and it hit me right in the glove and dropped out. I’d made it too big of a thing.

“But we saw how he carried himself. We saw the same Jim Abbott every day, and we came to the point where we were just honored to play with this guy. At the ball park, he’s the same. That smile, always something nice to say. The guy’s been an inspiration to millions. Millions! That outweighs any kind of won-lost record. He’ll be remembered for so many more things than this record.”

Perhaps he will be the next Young (who went 1-16 for the Mets in 1993) or the next Jack Nabors (who went 1-20 for the 1916 Philadelphia Athletics) or perhaps he will win a game by accident.

“When I first went out to the bullpen a month ago, I’d hear the red phone and pray it wasn’t for me,” Abbott said. “You get to the point where you say, ‘I’ve tried everything. What’s left?’ “

It has confounded everyone from his dad to Disney. No one knows exactly why Abbott’s pitches have traveled in slow motion or why his control has been on hiatus or why his ERA is 7.31. But his teammates are attempting psychoanalysis anyhow.

Marcel Lachemann, who resigned as Angels manager Tuesday, is suspicious of Abbott’s arm speed. In Abbott’s halcyon days - when he was 18-11 with a 2.89 ERA for the Angels in 1991 or when he was a Yankee icon in 1993 - he was mangling hitters with a 90-mph cut fastball.

But either the speed gun needs new batteries or Abbott is slowing down. In the last two seasons, Lachemann said, Abbott has been stuck in the 80s, and this is a genuine mystery. It is rare for a pitcher to hit such a wall at 27 or 28.

Tim Mead, the Angels assistant general manager, suspects the problem is Abbott’s guilt. Guilt over the Angels’ trading four players to the White Sox to reacquire him last season; guilt over the three-year, $7.8 million contract he signed in the off-season; guilt over letting down his new bosses at Walt Disney Co.; guilt over his sour disposition at home while his wife Dana is expecting their first child.

“His list of people he’s trying to please is a lot longer than most players’,” Mead said.

But Abbott will not whine in public. A day after losing his 13th game, he was the one grinning at the news of his teammate Tim Salmon’s newborn. On a team that is in last place in the American League West, he is the one cheering up teammates when it is supposed to be the other way around. His teammates, who expect him to be inconsolable, forget one small detail: Every time Abbott needs perspective, he just looks in the mirror for his right hand.

“I’ve said, ‘Maybe this is it, maybe I can’t get people out,”’ Abbott said. “But I know I haven’t pitched as well as I can. We’ll just have to see. If the results aren’t there, I’ll look at my baseball mortality and tip my hat to the game.”