Day Sixteen: Paul Abbott

I couldn't find a better picture of a Paul Abbott card from his time with the Mariners. But really this card illustrates everything that is important about Paul Abbott the pitcher: he is right handed, he has a smart-ass goatee, he throws funky pitches, his body looks like it belongs to someone who has never played competitive sports, and he was a Mariner. So let's start with that and work our way outwards.

Paul Abbott was best known for getting awful injuries. He hurt his elbow playing video games in 1989 (I hope it was Tecmo), and injured his shoulder diving for a ball during batting practice in 1992. He won a World Series ring with the Twins in 1991 without throwing a pitch, and got hit in the neck with a piece of broken bat that should have killed him. And he won 17 games for the Mariners in 2001. This is Paul Abbott's major league baseball life in a nutshell. Some crazy shit. He hadn't pitched in the Majors in four years when he signed with the Mariners in 1999 but soon found himself in the dog-day rotation and pitching meaningful and useful innings. He had to go back down to Tacoma to start the 2000 season which probably would have soured a lot of people but Paul Abbott had a remarkably good attitude. He worked his way back to the big club and finished the season a strong cog in the rotation. He won a great start against the White Sox in the Division Series that year and got pounded by the Yankees in one start in the Championship Series. It was an excellent year for him in his first full season as a major league pitcher--at the age of 32. And then 2001 rolled around.

The 2001 (pre-9/11) regular season was the reverse of an unfolding pandemic. Every day something new happened and it was shocking and dumbfounding, but all the things that were happening were amazing and enjoyable. Every game the Mariners played they would do something ridiculous and every single best outcome would be achieved. There was nothing that they couldn't accomplish between April and September 11th. They were a charmed organization. Paul Abbott was a great example of this charm. He had a much "worse" season than he did in 2000, yet he ultimately won 81% of his starts. The motherfucker went 17-4. He knew it too. Abbott would regularly joke with the media about the support he was getting and about how odd it was to be a minor league journeyman trotting out win after win on the national stage (because the Mariners were a national club in 2001, hard to believe but it's true youngsters!). He would wryly smile and say something like "well they really helped me out tonight!," after giving up three homeruns and winning 11-7. But that was just the way it was in 2001. The Mariners were like a bullet-train of unsustainable stats. And if nothing else is remembered about the 2001 campaign, let's remember that a guy like Paul Abbott can go 17-4. That ought to be broadcast to CY Young voters every September. Pitching victories are a useless stat. They are in fact more of a curiosity than anything else. "Did you know that Paul Abbott had 17 victories once?" "Oh boy, Grandpa is telling tall tales again."

God bless you, Paul Abbott. And of course you're a minor league manager nowadays.