Mordecai Centennial Peter Brown was born on October 19, 1876, during harvest season, in the rural mining community of Nyesville, Indiana. He was called Centennial to mark the hundredth birthday of the United States of America. Peter was his father's name, and there was an uncle named Mordecai. Mordecai had seven brothers and sisters.

In the summer of his fifth year, Mordecai and his elder brother were performing their daily chores, helping out on the farm. The boys' uncle kept livestock, and they always assisted with the feeding and care of the animals. While helping his brother to operate a feed chopper, Mordecai put his right hand under the moving blades of machinery. The feed cutter used series of circular blades that chopped the feed into pieces so that it would be easier for the animals to digest. The razor-sharp blades closed down on the fingers of his right hand, and every of his fingers were chopped to ribbons.

Dr Gillum, an experienced wartime surgeon was the town physician. He amputated the damaged finger. Several other fingers were broken and cut so he managed to sow them together, then applied splints to each finger to hold them straight while they healed. The doctor did a good job, and the injury was healing quickly.

Few weeks later with his hands wrapped in bandages, Mordecai and his sister were playing with a pet rabbit. He was making the rabbit swim in a tub partly filled with water. Suddenly, he lost balance and tumbled into the tub; his injured right hand smashed again at the bottom of the tub, breaking six bones. Afraid that his father would spank him hard, Mordecai told his sister not to tell anybody about the incident. They rebandaged Mordecai's hand and kept it secret.

Few weeks later, Dr. Gillum came to inspect his patient. When he removed the bandaged, Mordecai could no longer straighten his little finger, and the other fingers were bent and deformed. His middle finger bent first to the right and then to the left. Dr. Gillum, considered rebreaking the misaligned fingers to set them straight again, but he dismissed the notion, probably figuring that the lad had already undergone enough trauma. He decided to leave Mordecai with a permanently damaged hand.

Baseball was important in the community. There were no film theatres or many other things to do for entertainment. So after work and on weekends nearly the whole town went to the ballpark to play or watch baseball. Mordecai fell in love with the game of baseball and dreamt of becoming a baseball star. However, his disability would be difficult to overcome in the field of play. If he wants to be a hitter, it would be demanding for him to hold a bat with his damaged hand. To be a good fielder, he must be able to throw the ball without a sinking action which was not easy.

Mordecai decided to practice. He spent hours hurling rocks at the side of outbuildings attempting to knock out knotholes to improve his accuracy. He would stand at a distance from his mother's smoke house, at the point substituting a ball for a rock, and through with such force that the sphere would fly back to him. He practiced with potato; any round weighed object as same as a baseball. Hours of toss after toss, with each thump against the wooden plank of the barn, his aim got better and better. A former minor leaguer named Legs O'Connell Brown saw his determination and lectured Mordecai on baseball gripping and tossing with his injured hand.

With O'Connell's help Brown overcame the pain of handling the ball, yet time and again when he tossed it, the ball curved and jumped stubbornly, landing with an awkward twist. Brown was frustrated by this inability to control the ball, until O'Connell convinced him to turn the odd throwing style into an advantage.

With practice and perseverance, Brown learnt to pitch a natural curve ball with a special flair made possible only by the mass of crippled fingers on his right hand. Further, the way he was forced to hold the ball when he threw made it spin in a radical manner, and the extra topspin made it difficult for a batter to connect with his pitches. His pitches didn't only curve; it curved and dropped at the same time; it became extremely hard for batters to hit, and if they did hit it, they hit it into the ground because they couldn't get under it. It was as if God had moulded the perfect instrument to throw the curveball. While the two clawed fingers cradled the ball securely, he could tuck the fleshy nub of the remainder of his index finger firmly behind the baseball, giving it an unusual spin. After a few years, Mordecai became one of the best players in Nyesville and the entire baseball world. He became the mainstay of his club.

Brown finished his major-league career wining 239 and losing 130 games, with 1375 strikeouts, 2.06 Earned Run Average and 55 Shutouts, the third-best ERA in Major League Baseball. Brown was elected to baseball's Hall of Fame in 1949. In 1999, he was named as a finalist to the Major Baseball All-Century Team. And the machine that cut his fingers is displayed in Nyesville as a tourist attraction. No Cubs pitcher or team has topped his career statistics marks achievements in 100 years.

One of the greatest qualities of man is adaptability. Man can function comfortably in any condition. Most times we think that an organ cannot replace another, but the truth is that most part of our bodies can comfortably perform the functions of another. The legs can serve as the arms. We can move with some parts of our body apart from the legs. Our smell can see, and our eyes can speak. The ineffectiveness of an organ ignites the genius in another. Nature ensures that everyone extract equally from her resources. If an individual is deaf nature ensures that his eyes, mouth, feel, or any part of his body becomes extraordinary to ensure fairness. Therefore, nobody is disadvantaged because life is just.

It is also important to note that it is not the effectiveness of all the organs of the body that guarantees success or greatness but the rare features of an organ. Great Singers have uncommon voices, and celebrated soccer stars possess exceptional legs.

However, many have failed to discover and tap the riches of their extraordinary qualities because of the pains of practice. The only price for mastery is practice. The agony of practice is the fuel of professionalism. The gain of mastery is far greater than the pains of practice. It might be painful but it will soon be gainful. Training is normally painful at the initial stage; if you persevere, the pains will reduce gradually and later disappear.

Enduring the pains of practice is the only channel of overcoming the menace called; disability. Practice is the sole means of tapping the hidden extraordinary abilities in you. With diligent practice, you can do what you think you can't.