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Retired Pitcher Jim Abbott, 58, Born Without a Right Hand, Honored at the ESPYs
His Jimmy V Award speech focused on belonging, support and self-acceptance
Former Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Abbott accepts the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the ESPY Awards in New York on July 15, 2026.
AP Photo/Frank Franklin II
Key takeaways
- Former baseball player Jim Abbott received the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the ESPYs on July 15.
- Abbott thanked the teachers, relatives and coaches who helped him adapt after he was born without a right hand.
- He said he has come to accept the physical difference he struggled with earlier in life.
Jim Abbott, 58, did not use his moment at the ESPYs to recite his baseball statistics.
The former major league pitcher, who was born without a right hand, spoke instead about tying his shoes, buttoning a shirt and finding a place on a team.
Abbott received the Jimmy V Award for Perseverance at the ESPYs on July 15 in New York. ESPN’s annual awards show honors athletes, teams and major achievements in sports. Abbott was recognized for a career that included 10 major league seasons with the California Angels, New York Yankees, Chicago White Sox and Milwaukee Brewers and a no-hitter for the Yankees against Cleveland on Sept. 4, 1993.
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But Abbott used much of his acceptance speech looking past those achievements and describing the physical difference that shaped his childhood and career.
“I was born missing my right hand,” Abbott said. “I never wanted to make a big deal about that. I still don’t.”
He knew what it felt like to stand apart.
“Being born this way, I knew what it was like to be different,” he said. “I knew what it was like to be on the outside, looking in. I knew what it was like to want to prove yourself and be on a team.”
The desire to belong shaped Abbott’s relationship with sports.
“Of all the great blessings that sports have given me, that sense of belonging is the best,” he said.
Research suggests that resilience can remain strong as people age, particularly when they can draw on experience, flexibility and social support. Becca Levy, a professor of epidemiology in the social and behavioral sciences department at the Yale School of Public Health, interviewed by AARP, noted that older adults tend to have fewer mental health problems than younger adults do because a lifetime of experience has shown them, again and again, that difficult periods pass. Relationships, practical assistance and a willingness to ask for help can contribute to recovery and adaptation.
Abbott’s speech made that case through the people in his life.
He thanked his parents, his brother and the coaches and friends who helped him find ways to perform everyday tasks.
“There was no paradigm,” Abbott said. “There was no model.”
He went on to thank others who helped him “learn to open a can, button my shirt and do this damn tie. They helped me believe that I was up to this challenge.”
Abbott grew up in Flint, Michigan, and became a standout athlete at the University of Michigan. He helped the United States win a gold medal in baseball at the 1988 Seoul Olympics, then entered the major leagues.
Abbott retired after the 1999 season and became an author and motivational speaker. His life and career were the subjects of the ESPN documentary Southpaw: The Life and Legacy of Jim Abbott, which received a Peabody Award in 2026.
At the ESPYs, Abbott spoke from another stage of life. He thanked his wife, Dana, and their daughters and said his oldest daughter is getting married in November, making the awards speech only the second-most nerve-racking one on his calendar.
He also recalled a question his daughter Ella asked when she was in preschool: “Dad, do you like your little hand?”
Abbott had not expected the question. He said it touched on something he had struggled with for much of his life.
“Honey, you know what? I do,” he remembered telling her. “I like my little hand. I haven’t always liked it. It hasn’t always been easy. But it’s who I am, and it’s taken me to places I never would have gone without it.”
And, he added in his speech, “My little hand brought me up on this stage tonight.”
He then returned to the lesson at the center of his career: Doing something differently does not make the result any less worthy.
“It’s important to believe that you can do things differently in this world and still do them just as well as anybody else,” Abbott said.
He closed by urging the audience to focus on their abilities rather than what they lack.
“Make the most of what you’ve been given, and keep believing in what you bring to the table,” he said. “Then nothing can stop you.”
The key takeaways were created with the assistance of generative AI. An AARP editor reviewed and refined the content for accuracy and clarity.
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