2A - The Michigan Daily - Wednesday, April 12, 2006
NATION/WORLD
ABBOTT
Continued from page 1
"But after playing with him for three years,
I'd say he didn't."
Abbott perfected a method that allowed
him to pitch with just one hand. While in
the windup, he cradled the glove on the
stump of his right hand. As soon as he
released the ball, he transferred the glove
to his left hand.
It worked. During his 10 seasons,
Abbott made only nine fielding errors in
372 chances.
Drafted out of high school by the Toron-
to Blue Jays, Abbott almost skipped col-
lege to pitch in the pros.
But former University baseball player
Rick Leach encouraged him to develop
his pitching in college first. Abbott turned
down Toronto and went to the University.
True to Leach's word, Abbott's skills
bloomed.
"It was obvious that he had a special tal-
ent as a left-hand pitcher;"said Danny Hall,
the University's assistant baseball coach.
In 1987,his junior year,.he posted a 2.08
ERA, an 11-3 record and 60 strikeouts. In
the same year, he won the Golden Spikes
Award, which is given to the best amateur
baseball player in the country.
"The exposure to baseball at the Big
Ten level and traveling nationally was a
great way to prepare for the demands of
professional baseball," Abbott said in an
e-mail interview.
In his senior year, he played in the 1988
Olympics in Seoul. He allowed only 3 runs
in the gold medal game, propelling the
United States to a 5-3 win over Japan.
In the same year, he became the first
baseball player to win the James E. Sulli-
van Award, which is given to the top ama-
teur athlete in the United States.
By the time Abbott graduated, he'd
dazzled Major League scouts with the
cut fastball and curveball he'd developed
at the University.
"Playing for (former baseball coach)
Bud Middaugh made him more of a pitch-
er than a thrower, said Hall, who now
coaches at Georgia Tech.
The California Angels drafted
Abbott with the eighth overall pick in
1988. The club sent him straight to the
majors, making him one of only 21
players since the institution of the draft
to skip the minor leagues.
"Once he got the taste of winning at
Michigan, and knew he could do it, it
carried over into everything else he did,"
said Ignasiak, who played in the majors
for four years.
Abbott found success with the Angels.
He joined the league's elite starting pitch-
ers in 1991 when he posted a spectacular
2.89 ERA and an 18-11 record.
One September day in 1993, while
playing for the New York Yankees, Abbott
threw a no-hitter against the Cleveland
Indians. It was one of about 250 no-hitters
recorded in baseball history.
"The moment I pitched the no-hitter was
absolute disbelief and elation,' he said.
But Abbott couldn't remain a
pitcher forever. In 1996, again pitching
for the Angels, Abbott posted a 7.48 ERA.
He retired from baseball and skipped an
entire season.
In 1998, he attempted a comeback and
won all five games he started. But the next
year, he pitched poorly and retired perma-
nently from the sport at 31.
Having left the baseball world behind,
Abbott works as a motivational speaker,
speaking once or twice a month to groups
ranging from 50 to 1,000 people. He hopes
to show people that adversity can be over-
come, he said.
"I believe there is great potential within
all of us to rise up to the challenges we
face," Abbott said.
AP PHOTO
Vice President Gholamreza Aghazadeh, Iran's nuclear chief, speaks in Mashhad, Iran's holiest city, yesterday.
Iran successfully enriched uranium for the first time, a landmark in its quest to develop nuclear fuel.
Iransuccessfulily enriches
uraniu for fi-rst tie
ROME
Berlusconi loses, demands recount
Center-left economist Romano Prodi emerged the winner of Italy's election by a
razor-thin margin yesterday, promising to form a strong government able to run a
deeply divided country mired in economic stagnation. But Premier Silvio Berlus-
coni claimed voting irregularities and demanded a recount.
The dispute could usher in a period of uncertainty over the results, a process
which could take weeks. The outcome of the election must be approved by Italy's
highest court, and it is up the president to give the head of the winning coalition a
mandate to form a government
Even if the result is confirmed, prospects of a stable government under Prodi
look cloudy at best. Many fear a return to the political chaos that has characterized
Italian history since the end of World War II. There have been 60 governments in
about as many years.
In addition to a weak popular mandate, Prodi would preside over a potentially
unwieldy coalition. The center-left, while built on two mainstream parties, includes
a mixed group of smaller formations ranging from Catholics to communists.
ATLANTIC CITY, NJ.
Man awarded $9 million in Vioxx trial
A jury awarded $9 million in punitive damages yesterday to a man who blamed
his heart attack on Vioxx, finding that manufacturer Merck & Co. knowingly with-
held information about the risks of its arthritis drug from federal regulators.
Saying Merck's conduct showed a "wanton and willful disregardof another's
rights," the state court jury added to the $4.5 million it had awarded last week to
John McDarby, 77, of Park Ridge, and his wife, Irma.
Last Wednesday, the same panel found that Merck failed to warn of the drug's risks
and committed consumer fraud in misrepresenting them to prescribing physicians.
"This is a victory for all of the John and Irma McDarbys of the world, people
who are taking medications every single day, who now have at least a chance of
making sure that the companies that are making those medications are going to do
the right thing," said Jerry Kristal, one of McDarby's lawyers.
KARACHI, Pakistan
Suicide bomber kills 41 at prayer service
A suicide attacker detonated a bomb during an outdoor Sunni Muslim prayer
service yesterday, killing at least 41 people and wounding dozens. In the mayhem
that followed, angry mobs torched cars and hurled rocks at police, who fired warn-
ing shots in the air.
The attacker blew himself up near leaders of the Sunni Tehrik religious
group, which helped organize the prayer service at a downtown Karachi park,
police chief Niaz Siddiqui said.
The religious leaders were sitting near a stage erected in front of the thou-
sands of Sunni Muslims marking the birth of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
Several leaders were killed.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo.
Bush urges seniors to enroll in Medicare
President Bush, trying to rouse public interest in the new Medicare prescription
drug benefit, urged seniors in the Midwest yesterday to sign up for the program
before the May 15 deadline.
"I'm just telling you it's a good deal," he said.
Bush's visits with seniors in Missouri and Iowa are part of the administration's
grass-roots effort to ramp up enrollment in the program, which suffered startup prob-
lems and continues to be criticized as too confusing.
- Compiled from Daily wire reports
CORRECTIONS
An article on page 11 of yesterday's edition ('M' won't repeat without a
leader) incorrectly stated that the Michigan softball team has no captains. Seniors
Stephanie Bercaw and Grace Leutele are the team's captains, although their selec-
tion was never publicly released.
Please report any error in the Daily to corrections@michigandaily.com.
420 Maynard St., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1327
www.michigandaily.com
*1
Development does not
mean Iran will quickly be
able to develop the material
for a nuclear warhead
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) - Iran has suc-
cessfully enriched uranium for the first
time, a landmark in its quest to develop
nuclear fuel, hard-line President Mah-
moud Ahmadinejad said yesterday,
although he insisted his country does
not aim to develop atomic weapons.
In a nationally televised speech,
Ahmadinejad called on the West "not to
cause an everlasting hatred in the hearts
of Iranians" by trying to force Iran to
abandon uranium enrichment.
The announcement came ahead of a
visit to Tehran this week by Mohamed
ElBaradei, the head of the U.N. nucle-
ar watchdog agency, who is trying to
resolve the West's standoff with Iran.
The U.N. Security Council has demand-
ed Iran stop all enrichment activity by
April 28. Iran has rejected this, saying it
has a right to the process.
"At this historic moment, with the
blessings of God almighty and the
efforts made by our scientists, I declare
here that the laboratory-scale nuclear
fuel cycle has been completed and young
scientists produced enriched uranium
needed to the degree for nuclear power
plants Sunday," A hmadinejad said.
"I formally declare that Iran has
joined the club of nuclear countries,"
he told an audience that included top
military commanders and clerics in
the northwestern holy city of Mashhad.
The crowd broke into cheers of "Allahu
akbar!" or "God is great!" Some stood
and thrust their fists in the air.
The White House denounced the lat-
est comments by Iranian officials, with
spokesman Scott McClellan saying they
"continue to show that Iran is moving in
the wrong direction."
Ahmadinejad said Iran "relies on
the sublime beliefs that lie within
the Iranian and Islamic culture. Our
nation does not get its strength from
nuclear arsenals."
He said Iran wanted to operate its
nuclear program under supervision by
the International Atomic Energy Agen-
cy and within its rights and regulations
under the regulations of the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty.
The announcement does not mean
Iran is immediately capable of pro-
ducing enough fuel to run a reactor or
develop the material needed for a nucle-
ar warhead. Uranium enrichment can
produce either, but it must be carried out
on a much larger scale, using thousands
of centrifuges.
Iran succeeded in enriching ura-
nium to a level needed for fuel on a
research scale - using 164 centrifug-
es, officials said.
But the breakthrough underlined how
difficult it will be for the West to con-
vince Iran to give up enrichment.
Ahmadinejad made the announce-
ment in a richly appointed hall of one of
Iran's holiest cities in a ceremony clear-
ly aimed at proclaiming the country's
nuclear success.
Speaking before Ahmadinejad, Vice
President Gholamreza Aghazadeh
- the nuclear chief - said Iran has
produced 110 tons of uranium gas, the
feedstock that is pumped into centrifug-
es for enrichment. The amount is nearly
twice the 60 tons of uranium hexaflou-
ride, or UF-6, gas that Iran said last year
that it had produced.
Aghazadeh said Iran plans to
expand its enrichment program to be
able to use 3,000 centrifuges by the
end of the year.
The United States and some Euro-
pean countries accuse Iran of seeking to
develop nuclear weapons, an accusation
Tehran denies, saying it intends only to
generate electricity.
The IAEA is due to report to the
U.N11Security Council on -April 28
whether Iran has met its demand for
a full halt to uranium enrichment. If
Tehran has not complied, the council
will consider the next step. The U.S.
and Europe are pressing for sanctions
against Iran, a step Russia and China
have so far opposed.
McClellan told reporters traveling
on Air Force One with President Bush
that Iran's enrichment claims "only
further isolate" Tehran and under-
score why the international commu-
nity must continue to raise concerns
about its suspected ambition to devel-
op nuclear weapons.
McClellan noted the Security Coun-
cil clock now running on Iran.
0
DONN M. FiuiSARD
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