New Jim Abbott documentary focuses on impact former Yankee's no-hitter had outside baseball
Former Yankees pitcher Jim Abbott in a scene from a new ESPN documentary entitled “Southpaw – The Life and Legacy of Jim Abbott." Credit: ESPN
Mike Farrell is 40 and grew up near Toronto, a combination that made the Blue Jays’ back-to-back World Series championships of 1992 and ’93 a foundational sports experience.
It also made him “a bit of a Yankees hater” when he was a kid.
But some stories transcend partisanship, as a young fan and even more so as a grown-up documentary filmmaker.
Hence “Southpaw — The Life and Legacy of Jim Abbott,” in which Farrell seeks to tell a new generation of a remarkable achievement now more than three decades old.
The E60 documentary premieres on ESPN at 9 p.m. on Sunday and later in slightly expanded form on ESPN+.
On Sept. 4, 1993, Abbott threw a no-hitter for the Yankees against Cleveland at Yankee Stadium, the pinnacle of an unlikely baseball career for a man born without a fully formed right hand.
“I always felt like Jim Abbott’s no-hitter was one of the more remarkable achievements in sports history,” Farrell told Newsday. “It’s one of those things you hear about that happened and you’re like, ‘Wait, what?’
“What I didn’t know when I first started looking into it was the unbelievable impact that he had on people with limb differences, people with disabilities, all over the world. And that really ended up becoming the heart of the story.”
The film depicts a young, reluctant Abbott wanting to be treated like any other player but eventually coming to understand his responsibility to a wider community.
That includes a later generation of athletes with similar challenges, including Shaquem Griffin, the first NFL player with one hand.
Griffin and many others Abbott touched appear in the film, along with family members and people from his baseball life, including his then-Yankees manager, Buck Showalter.
“It was surreal,” Showalter says of the no-hitter. “This was a day when baseball and life repaid Jim for everything he had meant and the impact he had made on so many human beings.”
(Showalter appears wearing a Mets uniform. Farrell said the bulk of the interviews were conducted in 2023.)
Abbott — who threw out the first pitch at Yankee Stadium before Tuesday night’s game — finished his 10-year big league career with an 87-108 record and a 4.25 ERA. In his two seasons as a Yankee in 1993 and ’94 he was 20-22 with a 4.45 ERA.
Now 57, he makes a living giving motivational speeches, one of which is shown in the film.
For a filmmaker, having someone like Abbott as a subject makes life easier.
“What makes Jim a good subject for a documentary is not only the life that he lived, the career that he had, but his ability to discuss the complications and the layers and the nuance of that experience in a compelling and relatable way,” Farrell said.
Still, Abbott initially was reluctant to participate, feeling his story had been told often over decades and not wanting to subject his family and friends to another round of interviews.
Farrell and reporter Jeremy Schaap eventually persuaded him to introduce himself to those too young to remember his career. As the story expanded to Abbott’s impact on children, the enterprise felt worth the effort.
“I hope that it was a bedtime story for a parent out there with a young kid who may see the challenges of his life as insurmountable,” he says in the film.
“I’m just so proud to be a part of this community. I’m proud of having played a small part in your lives. It means the world to me. It’s how I’d like to be remembered.”
His mother, Kathy, says of the no-hitter, “It still makes me tearful. The happiness of the moment can’t be matched. It was wonderful.”
Thus did Farrell, a guy who recalled during the playoffs singing “OK Blue Jays” in school right after “O Canada,” come to chronicle the life of a unique Yankee.
“Regardless of what team Jim played for and how I felt about that team, the story is undeniable,” Farrell said. “And him as a person is as good a guy as you’ll ever meet in professional sports. So it’s easy to root for him.
“That’s an obvious statement. But the pinstripes aside, I think everybody can be a fan of Jim Abbott, whether you like the Yankees or not.”
Neil Best first worked at Newsday in 1982, returned in 1985 after a detour to Alaska and has been here since, specializing in high schools, college basketball, the NFL and most recently sports media and business.
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