Talk:Bud Daley

Polio myth

According to

• Swaine, Rick (2004). Beating the Breaks: Major League Ballplayers Who Overcame Disabilities. McFarland & Company. p. 192. ISBN 0786418281. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

Bud Daley did not have a shortened right arm, or was he naturally a right hander. The polio story is a myth. Page 192 says:

Former left-handed pitcher Bud Daley is often remembered as a player who overcame a severe disability to become a major leaguer. Supposedly, Daley suffered from a withered or deformed right arm – a condition that has been compared to that of Jim Abbott in some publications. The popular story is that Daley was a natural right-hander who learned to throw from the left side after suffering either a childhood injury or a bout with polio that stunted the growth of his right arm – leaving it permanently weakened and significantly shorter than his left one.

The truth, according to Bud Daley himself, is that his right shoulder and arm were damaged by the doctor's forceps during childbirth. The instrument pinched a nerve in his shoulder and his right arm was paralyzed at first. But his mother massaged the injured arm and shoulder, and forced him to use it until it developed into a healthy limb. Bud doesn't know how the severity of the condition became exaggerated.

So much for the legend that he was a converted left, unless Bud was throwing from the right side while still in the womb!...

Colin°^Talk 21:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)