“I wanted to prove them wrong,” said Michael Branca, a history major at Longwood University, as he reflected on his decision to pursue the sport of baseball. Branca was born without his left hand and at the age of six, he taught himself how to play baseball.
“It was a sport I didn’t think was possible to play,” he stated. “A lot of people said it was going to be hard.” Branca learned by watching retired MLB player Jim Abbott, who pitched for teams like the California Angels and the New York Yankees during his career. Abbott was also a one-handed player. When Branca was seven, he joined a machine pitch league and has been playing ever since.
When Branca was 12 years old, his mother talked to Sports Illustrated about Abbott’s influence on Branca’s dreams to pursue baseball and how Abbott’s famous glove-switching technique made it possible for young Branca to play.
Abbott and Branca aren’t the only ones born without two, fully-developed hands. According to the Boston Children’s hospital’s website, one in every 32,000 children are born with this condition.
A sport like baseball requires the extended use of both hands, which makes it difficult for someone with only one. Though Branca has owned a prosthetic for a few years, he only uses it when he goes to the gym. Individuals like Branca or Jaide Bucher from Gatorade’s “Win from Within” feature last year show disabled kids that they can be just like anyone else, if not better.
“He’s a great outfielder. He’s got one of the strongest arms on our team too,” said fellow club baseball player and junior, Mitchell Martin. In his two years on the team, Branca has five hits in 15 at-bats with three walks and two RBIs.
“You rarely see anybody with a disability like Michael has, using one hand … being able to play a sport and not letting that get in your way, I mean, it has to have some level of inspiration attached to it,” said club baseball’s president, Eric Woodard.
Branca said throughout his childhood, he always learned to adapt and keep up with the pace of his peers, with a few difficulties. His greatest challenge was learning how to play sports with his disability, but that didn’t stop him from competing in baseball and football all through high school.
According to Branca, he didn’t deal with a lot of bullying or insolence growing up. “I did the same things they did, some probably better than they did, so I got a lot of respect off of that,” said Branca. It seems like Branca was always in on the jokes.
“That was the first thing he said was ‘call me nubs,'” said Martin. Branca revealed that in sixth grade the nickname stuck with him and that’s what he prefers his teammates call him, even though Martin said they occasionally refer to him as the “one-handed bandit.”
Branca said people are always shocked at his unique ability to play baseball despite his circumstance, but that never deterred him from joining the club baseball team when he arrived at Longwood. Senior club baseball coach, Scottie Lafferty, stated, “He pushes everybody harder, ‘cause he’s out there competing right along with us.”
Woodard added, “Without him on the team, it wouldn’t be the same."
