Two Athletes with Disability Prove Amazing in Pro Careers

The two most unusual athletes I ever met were Ed Furgol, the golfer who won the U.S. Open in 1974, and Pete Gray, who played right field for the American League's St. Louis Browns in 1944. They had the same physical disability: both had lost the use of one arm.

I spoke to Furgol several times in the 1960s, after he had become golf director at the Concord Hotel in New York's Catskills. As for Gray, I used to see him in the 1930s at Dexter Park in Brooklyn, playing for the semi-pro Bushwicks before crowds of 5,000 or more.

Furgol and Gray both had accidents as 12-year-olds. The injuries had failed to heal. Furgol had emerged from his mishap with a crooked, cocked left arm that was 10 inches shorter than his right one. Gray went on to play baseball with only a stump where his right arm had been.

The two athletes had succeeded in making surprising adjustments.

A determined Furgol focused on strengthening his right hand in order to put more power in his swing.

Gray had developed a technique in playing right field that enabled him to be highly effective. After fielding a ball with his right, gloved hand, he would tuck his mitt under his left stump, roll the ball across his chest and throw it with his right hand, all in one fluid motion.

"I had my sights set on becoming a pro golfer when I was only an 8-year-old," Furgol told me the first time we met. He was standing behind the counter of the hotel's pro shop.

"I started by caddying at the Utica Country Club, which is only up the road from here," he said. "Even after my injury, I began thinking in terms of sticking to the sport, although I wasn't sure it made any sense."

Until he was 14, Furgol had owned only one golf club - a 5-iron. "I would go to bed trying to figure how I could produce an effective swing with that one good arm," he said. "Of course, I couldn't copy anyone else's style. I eventually came up with one that had exceptionally strong hand action."

In capturing the 1954 U.S. Open at New Jersey's Baltrusol Golf Club in New Jersey, Furgol joined some select company. The great Ben Hogan had won it a year earlier, with a four-round total of 283. Furgol scored 284 in his first-place finish, beating the formidable Gene Littler by one stroke.

Furgol was on the tour for 10 years and won six events.

As for Gray, he proved an excellent draw for the Bushwicks. I saw him several times as a cub reporter, because I was a member of The New York Times' Brooklyn-Queens section sports staff. Besides, I lived within 3 miles of Dexter Park and would drop in occasionally to watch the team even when not on assignment.

"The toughest part of becoming a player was that I had to learn to throw and bat from the right side although I was a natural left-hander," he told me at our first meeting. "I knew I couldn't be a long-ball hitter, so I concentrated on trying to spray my hits between the infield and outfield."

Gray was picked up by the Browns for the 1945 season at a time when World War II was in its last innings and many of the sport's top players were doing service in the military. A year later, as a member of the Memphis club, he was named the Southern Association's Most Valuable Player.

However, with the Browns he batted a lowly .218 in 77 games. With the war over that year, he was returned to the minor leagues and then barnstormed with semi-pro teams until the early 1950s.