5 People Who Turned Awful Disabilities Into Superpowers
#2.
Clayton "Pegleg" Bates
One of the first black men to ever appear on the Ed Sullivan Show.
The Condition:At the age of 12, Bates was working in a cotton gin mill when his left leg got caught and munched in a conveyor belt. The amputation that followed occurred right on his own dinner table, leaving him without a left leg for the rest of his life, and presumably "just not that hungry" whenever mom put supper on the table.
On the bright side, his uncle carved him up a wooden peg leg... made from a tree branch struck by lightning and presumably blessed by leprechauns.
Bates had started dancing at the age of five. Because he's better at life than you, losing a whole leg and replacing it with a tree branch did nothing but encourage him to get better. Hating the pity that came his way, he resolved to become the best goddamn tap dancer the world had ever seen. He relearned the steps, incorporating the deep wooden tone of his peg to contrast with the high-pitch of a metal tap shoe on his other foot.
It wasn't just a novelty. Tap dancing is half dancing and half percussion, and Bates's wooden leg gave him a bass drum while everyone else was dancing around on two snares. This enabled him to completely reinvent the popular dances of his time.
"It's just not fair!" -Everyone trying to compete with this guy.
He also used the peg to perform high flying acrobatics and balancing moves during performances that make us embarrassed to even walk on two legs.
If you can't watch the video, let us assure you: Everything on two legs gets served at 1:20 and again at around 1:40.
After beginning his professional career at the age of 15--less than three years after the kitchen table incident--he continued dancing to great acclaim well into his 60s. As mentioned above, he was the first black dancer to appear on the Ed Sullivan Show, at a time when it was controversial to confirm that black people existed in the media. But it wasn't controversial after he did his thing: He went on to appear on the show 21 freaking times. He was also the first black performer to tour the Tivoli circuit in Australia. He then became a hit on Broadway, toured Europe seven times and opened up his own hugely successful country club-resort in the 1960s.
All of that success enabled him to rack up a fortune, and purchase more than a dozen peg legs.
None of which needed a gun to own our sorry asses.
#1.
Mordecai "Three-Finger" Brown
An early 20th Century pitcher.
The Condition:While using a feed chopper on his farm, Brown slipped, inadvertently shoving his hand into the blades. His index finger was pretty much chopped clean off, and the rest weren't much better. Fortunately, a competent doctor managed to repair and save every finger but the index. Unfortunately, during the healing process, Brown accidentally fell and broke the bones in his hand some more. Even worse, he didn't tell anyone about it, either because he was embarrassed by his clumsiness, or because the pain hardly seemed notable when compared with the feed chopper incident. Regardless, the bones didn't set correctly.
"GAAAHHH, OH GOD MAKE IT STOP! I...I mean, yes, I do take this man to be my husband."
As a boy, Brown had spent the part of his childhood that didn't involve horrific mind blanking pain throwing stones at holes in his barn. Over time, he got pretty good at it. With his hand beyond destroyed, he took up the hobby again, this time probably out of anger at the entire institution of farming, and found that he was no longer good at it. He was amazing.
By an insane stroke of luck or possibly--because he was a Jedi and this had been the plan all along--when he threw a baseball with his mangled hand it came off with a bizarre spin, which, if you're not a baseball fan, is kind of useful. His curve ball, for example, was rated "most devastating" by Ty Cobb, a man who still holds the record for highest career batting average and who just might be the greatest baseball player to have ever lived.
Also, he once beat up a guy with missing fingers, so you know... he wasn't just being nice.
Players had a hell of a time connecting with Brown's pitches, hitting grounders if they were lucky, and little else. He had a huge part in two World Series' championships for the Cubs, winning five games in the first. Before the second one, Brown won the pennant by competing and beating his rival, and contender for unofficial title as best pitcher in the league, Christy Mathewson, who was only slightly behind Brown career-wise.
Because of his stupid fingers.
By the end of his career, 239 games had been won, 1375 batters had been struck out and an ERA of 2.06 had been achieved, making "Three-Finger" the third best pitcher in the history of baseball. Oh, and he was a pretty decent batter, which is also incredibly rare for awesome pitchers. The Baseball Hall of Fame inducted Brown in 1949, a year after his death, adding one final honor to cap off an amazing life and proving that farm related accidents are a lottery you can win. If you're a Jedi.
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That photo of Dustin Carter lifting those weights without any limbs is completely awesome.
ReplyAs a wrestler, Dustin Carter is one of the things we spread around. When I first saw his interview video depicting his face, I thought, "just another white kid complaining about his oh-so-abusive childhood." I s**t balls when they zoomed out at his entire frame, I felt ashamed when about my initial thoughts, only to s**t balls the size of bowling balls when I saw his record.
ReplyThat erika chick likes inanimate objects? Goddamn, I'll bet she went nuts when she realized dildos exist...
Replyi was dustin carters last match at state his senior year. i won 5-3... the kid was amazing. if he would have beat me, he would have been a state placer. ill never forget that match!! i about s**t when i saw him in this article on my favorite website!
ReplyKyle Maynard is just like Dustin Carter, except he was born that way.
ReplyWhy would Peg Leg's video be removed. I swear that YouTube is next to useless.
ReplyYeah but if you beat the armless wrestler - you beat a guy with no arms. And if the armless wrestler beats you - you were beat by the guy with no arms.
ReplyIt's like playing chess with Bobby Fischer in 1956 - you're not impressing any ladies outsmarting a 13 year old or beating up an armless guy.
It's more like beating Yoda in Soul Calibur 4, he's half your size so he's awkward to hit. Or like winning a FPS game against a team of headless soldiers.
If Ty Cobb says something nice about you, it must be true.
ReplyOn the other hand, Brown batted .206 with 2 home runs for his career. So whatever this author says about you might not be true.
.206 is actually not bad for a pitcher. Cy Young hit .210, Lefty Grove hit .148, and Jim Kaat hit .189, for instance. Ruth was the exception to the rule, and he hit .304 with 15 homers while he was a steady pitcher (his batting didn't really pick up until he moved to the outfield where he could play every day).
How about the drummer from Def Leppard? He's missing an arm, and has still had a very successful career.
ReplyI have to disagree. He went on to play some pretty mediocre drum beats when compared to the world of two armed drummers. Is it impressive that he made a career out of drumming with one arm? Definitely, can't say I'd find it to be easy. But it didn't exactly propel him into greatness so I don't think you could call it an advantage.
I had a one-armed drummer who was waaay better than the drummer out of Def Leppard. Ever seen a one-armed snare roll? Priceless
Dustin Carter did an MMA match. He lost
ReplyOf course he lost.
He went to the same college I did, kind of weird to see a film crew following a student around every once in a while. Finally found out about half way through the semester he was famous.
Does Tony iommi count?
Reply'cause of his messed up fingers or because he was a lefty. It's because he's a lefty isn't it
Tony Iommi makes me ashamed of my own guitar skills. Also, Django Reinhardt
I'm sure someone pointed it out, but still:
Replythe advantages to having shorter circulation are nothing compared to the absence of legs. You know, these things pilots use ALL THE TIME. Because they make all the critical steering with the help of rudders, which are controlled by pedals. And also someone said (and proved) that the pilot flies with his ass (meaning the degree of full-body awareness of an aircraft's orientation). They tried to novocaine the s**t of some expirienced combat pilots' asses and got awful results in even the basic aerobatics.
So think learning to play CS with your knuckles on WASD. On a national level. WASD is not that delicate or critical as the mouse (the stick), but...
good god man.shut the f**k up.you are impossibly annoying.
YOUR POINT IS VALID AND THAT MAKES ME ANGRY!!!
By any chance are you one of those commentors that makes their post's content match their username, ganglia?
I thought for sure Oscar Pistorius or a paraolympian would make this list.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesYou wanna throw us some context on that one, or just generally assume that "Oscar Pistorius" is a household name? If you think I'm gonna Wiki your comment, you are severely underestimating my laziness. And, most likely, the laziness of the internet at large.
Paraolympians shouldn't make this list. I mean, paraolympians compete with paraolympians, and so there's no one dude who outshined all those dudes despite missing a leg...EVERYONE is missing a leg. The people on this list kicked everyone's butt, including normal guys.
@Anomymouse123e Still, his personal record is only 1,3s lower than the world record in 100m and 1,5s in 400m. If not a place in the article, he deserves at least a little piece of attention. In other words, TRY TO RUN AGAINST THIS DISABLED BASTARD IF YOU DARE.
Pistorius is the first disabled athlete to win a medal at the IAAF World Championship! It is a big deal!
does Stephen Hawking count?
Reply Hide All See All 10 RepliesNot only does he count, but he also does long-division, algebra, geometry, and astrophysics.
walked right into that one... shoulda gone with 'apply,' but then I guess you coulda gone with 'yes, he applies quantum wave functions in rigorous fashion'..... can't win, damnit!
Tepo, you are a genius
Haha good work Tepo
In all seriousness, he doesn't count because his disability isn't helpful to his work. He's a genious despite of it, not because of it. It hinders his work, since he has to do everything in his head, or use his incredibly slow eye-interface to interact with people and computers. If he was fully mobile, he'd be even more capable, though probably not quite as famous.
And there's also the fact that he was a genius before his condition (which i think started in college).
Tepo, f**king A man. Kudos.
Holy f**k, that was awesome. Though I think I'm laughing harder at this than I should.
I think he was smart even before his condition set it
Tepo1234 Sir, your comment is pure win.
Dustin Carter looks a hell of a lot like a kid I went to school with o.0
ReplyBy which you mean he has no arms or legs?
Man that Erika is such a s**t!
ReplyWhat the hell are they talking about with this Three-Finger Brown business? Better than Christy Mathewson? I don't think so. You would be hard-pressed to find someone who would put Brown ahead of Mathewson. Don't get me wrong, Brown was a great pitcher (the general consensus is that he's in the top 15 or 20) but don't exaggerate his greatness for the sake of the article, he was amazing enough.
Reply Hide All See All 5 Repliessomeone needs 2 stop drinking some Haterade
f**k YEAR. I agree with this man wholeheartedly (regarding Matthewson). He and his brother hold the record for most wins by brothers playing on the same team (Christy has all of them), and while Three-Finger Brown was a great pitcher, I don't know of any manager who would take 239 wins in a career over 373.
What the author likely screwed up in reference to is the fact that Brown's ERA is the third best career ERA of any pitcher, rather than that he is the third best pitcher ever.
yeah... but he was a Jedi, so f**k Matthewson
Indeed. Cracked authors take note: if you're going to talk about a sport that is essentially nothing but masturbation material for armchair statisticians, make sure you get your facts straight or commentors will haunt you to your shallow graves.
Doesn't the # of years a player's career lasted factor into the stats as well? I meanif you have 2 players and they both hav a career batting average of, say, .300 wouldn't the player with the shorter career be considered the better batter? Couldn't the same be said of pitchers as well?
Run this by me again... how do you get a scholarship to a school where tuition is free to every student? Seriously, getting into a service academy is impressive, but the last I checked all you had to pay was a deposit to cover initial uniforms, a laptop and stuff. It's $3,000 at the Coast Guard Academy and presumably not much more at the USAFA.
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesI think they meant Erika Eiffel was accepted to USAFA, which costs (us, the taxpayers) about $250K per student for four years. Reading between the lines on the article that was linked and mentioned she had been discharged from the AF, though, my guess is her obsession may have helped her with concentrating on and learning F-15s, but that she was a little too obsessed, and that someone who is more interested in connections with things has problems connecting with people. That would be a definite liability in the military in which cameraderie and teamwork is more important than raw technical skill. At least, that's what I learned from that Navy doc*mentary "Top Gun" with Tom Cruise. Anyhoo, she appears to have the type of personality disorder that would get you medically discharged from the military. Doing the math on when she would have graduated, I'd say some USAFA grad or airman from the mid-90s would know what happened with her and could chime in.
When one is accepted into a service academy, they receive a scholarship for their education, with the condition that they finish all four years at the school AND serve in the military for a certain amount of time (drop out and you need to pay this money back). One doesn't pay much money out of their pocket in order to attend the school, but the education is only free (meaning the cadet is not paying anything for the education) because of the scholarship. There is a financial value for the education, which can be several thousand dollars a semester. The government is paying for the education, so the education is only "free" to the one receiving it.
I don't mean to be a buzzkill, but how it works for any service academy here is that you recieve a certain amount of money based on your service contract with which to pay back the U.S. government. It does not actually cost the tax-payers $250k for four years as it is a decided amount of value by the military based on the school in addition to the obligation of four years worth of service that the government put you through school for. The taxpayer, such as myself, does help pay for the school however it is not expensive to us given that mostly all of the faculty and staff are military members the finance of which is the same as anyone in the same rank as them throughout the military and has also been accounted for since a system of training has been set up in the military.
@Big_Z and wolfgirl90: I've been in the military for 25 years and known a lot of Academy grads, and no one has referred to receiving a "scholarship" to a service academy. You earn an appointment, and because there is no tuition, there are no scholarships or financial assistance to defray the cost of school. I also don't understand the double-secret-probation sunk-cost bookkeeping method; the cost to the taxpayer of an academy education is the cost of everything associated with the academy (teacher salaries, books, facilities, travel, etc.) divided by the number of graduates. That ends up "actually" costing the taxpayer a bit more than $250K for an academy education because the buildings, jobs, etc., would not have to otherwise exist. Whether that is more or less expensive than the alternatives is debatable, but that remains the "actual cost." Personally, I think it's far more expensive than the training alternatives (OTS and ROTC), and again based on my experience, produces many fine officers but does not necessarily produce better officers. But, back to the main point, the article mentioned Erika received a $250K scholarship to USAFA, when a more accurate statement would have been that she received an appointment to USAFA that is worth around $250K. She also eventually went through pilot training and then trained in an F-15. Then she lost it all because she fell in love with a metal structure.
I would have put on Tony Iommi. He lost a finger when a huge piece of metal fell on it, and almost had to put his guitar away and give up the instrument for life. But then he got a metal replacement digit, and found that not only could he still play, but his guitar strings, when vibrating against the metal, attained a very new, powerful distortion effect. The guy went on to play a long and successful career in Black Sabbath, creating a music genre known as 'heavy metal' (get it? He lost his finger cos of heavy metal?) and changed the face of rock beyond all recognition. But I didn't write it, so i didn't.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesI absorbed some knowledge from you today!
loss of his finger lead to his simple, dropped down, loud and rhythmic style. Very influential because of it, I agree.
He didn't lose a finger - he lost all his fingertips. This meant he had to down-tune his guitar to reduce tension in the strings so he could play. That is what led to the heavier, bassy sound.
I'm very happy that someone mentioned that before I got to it. I thank you as a metal nerd.
and let's not forget django rheinhart,one of the world's greatest guitarists,also missing a finger
Django Reinhardt lost 2 fingers of his left in a fire, and later became the greatest jazz guitarist of all time, playing just with two fingers.
Jean Jacques Machado should be on this list, in my opinion.
ReplyGo on...