Reviews

Imperfect: An Improbable Life by Jim Abbott, Tim Brown

iceangel32's review against another edition

5.0

This was a great story of one of my favorite baseball players. There was so much insight into his stuggle and his life and baseball. His story was intertwined with his no hitter at Yankee stadium. It was great listening to his story.

wonso31's review

inspiring

5.0

kanejim57's review against another edition

4.0

“Dad, do you like your little hand?”

Imperfect: An Improbable Life is not a standard sports biography. In fact, I argue that it is a book about a man who happened to play baseball, and play it well, and not the other way around. Published by Ballantine Books, Imperfect weaves the first person narrative of a rare sporting achievement, pitching a “no-hitter” (which means no one on the other team got a hit) in a professional baseball game and as a New York Yankee with larger story of how he got there.

Born with a physical defect which left him without a right hand, Jim Abbott, pitched his way out of Flint, Michigan, into the University of Michigan, then into a gold medal win at the 1988 Summer Olympics for the USA baseball team and finally into major league baseball where he achieved a pitcher’s dream of throwing a no-hitter. Along the way he learned how to handle the constant barrages of ridicule, simple fascination, and silent stares of his right hand and come to terms with his limitations and who he was and who he was not.

What I appreciate about this book is that it is more than a “baseball biography.” It is both an outer and inner narrative of someone who did not let a disability determine what he could and could not do in life. It contains a honest, even modest, honoring of his parents who supported him throughout his growing up years, his wife Dana, and others along the way who saw not someone with a disability but someone who had the drive and the talent to play baseball. And did.

One of the more moving sections of the book, which I will admit moved me to tears, is contained in chapter 13, where Abbott speaks about all the children and parents who would show up at the ballparks hoping for a kind word:

I had an idea – an inaccurate one, it turned out-that reaching the major leagues would be a personal finish line. I was never going to have two hands, but I assumed the story would grow old, and some other sparkly object would come along to catch the eye of the sports world and, anyway, by then I would have proven the game was not different for me… I was wrong. The attention from the media was, at times, stifling. The labels remained. The headlines in the local papers in every city we played were unchanged…And even that wasn’t what I was so completely wrong about. I was wrong about the children. I didn’t see them coming, not in the numbers they did. I didn’t expect the stories they told, or the distance they traveled to tell them, or the desperation revealed in them. They were shy and beautiful, and they were loud and funny, and they were, like me, somehow imperfectly built. And, like me, they had parents nearby, parents who willed themselves to believe that this accident of circumstance or nature was not a life sentence, and that the spirits inside these tiny bodies were greater than the sums of their hands and feet.

If you are looking for a different kind of sports book get this one. It will give you something to ponder in a good way. With the help of a veteran writer, Tim Brown, Jim Abbott tells a wonderful story of overcoming and being successful in all the right ways.

I rate this book a ‘great’ read.

Note: This book was an uncorrected advance reader copy via Amazon Vine program. I received a copy of the book in exchange for a review of it. I was not required to write a positive review.

ereidsma's review against another edition

4.0

If you like baseball this is a must read. I’m not a baseball fan, but my regular run route in Byron Center takes me past Jim Abbott’s house. When I learned that he wrote an autobiography, I checked it out and saw great reviews and have to agree with them. A well written story about Jim Abbott. Born without a right hand the book tells about his journey from birth to a successful major league pitcher. An inspiring story of how he dealt with, overcame and actually was propelled by his having only one hand. I especially liked the work he did with sport psychologist Harvey Dorfman and some of Jim’s deeper reflective thoughts near the end of the book.

rebeccalm's review

3.0

I enjoyed learning more about this baseball player whose name I've heard before but who I didn't really know much about. Jim tells his story with a lot of honesty and humility - it was very interesting (even for someone like myself who is not too interested in the minutiae of baseball). Jim was a man with a lot of character, grit, and determination - talent and hard work took him very far in life. Despite, and perhaps because of, a noticeable missing limb that caused most people to underestimate him, Jim always chose to persevere and make sure to prove to himself and others just how capable he really was. A very interesting read.

andrea_baker's review

4.0

The way the book weaves the perfect game with the story of his life is excellent. It's a great balance of life, baseball, and growing up. I really enjoyed it. An epilog of what he went on to do after retiring from baseball would have been a great addition. Even if it wasn't complete.

ewynn610's review

1

bobbo49's review

3.0

An inspirational autobiography, written in a rather pedantic athlete's style, this is the story of Jim Abbott, the one-handed pitcher out of Michigan who won an Olympic gold medal and pitched in the major leagues for 10 years, including a no-hitter that winds through the book. The description of his life-long struggle not to be defined by his handicap - while allowing the struggle itself to define him - is at the heart of the story.

socraticgadfly's review

4.0

Nice, solid book. Nothing spectacular, but a good overview of Jim Abbott's life. Doesn't pull punches about himself, doesn't get overly sentimental. The one missing thing is info about his post-baseball life, since, at the end of his book, he seems to be "finding himself" more in part because he is accepting the need to move beyond playing baseball. Probably, if fine tuned, the rating would be a hair below a full four stars.

mamanaja's review

1.0

It started off and ended inspirationally, but the middle was extremely laborious. I understand Jim is a humble person, but he came off as constantly down on himself, wallowing and it got tiring after a few chapters.