The nice feature on former Yankee pitcher Jim Abbott’s 1993 no-hitter, aired this week by the Yankees cable network, is a good starting point to discuss an old conundrum in sports journalism—how a highly visible athlete’s inspirational feat too easily can be interpreted as a morality play.

That Abbott, who was born with only one hand, could overcome what he called his “situation” to pitch in the Big Leagues—let alone throw a no-hitter—marvelously demonstrated the power of the human spirit. A motivating, heartening triumph. It did not necessarily establish Abbott’s superior moral fiber.

Don’t misinterpret that. From all reports—including my own brief contact with Abbott six years before his pitching gem—he earned a reputation as a bright and decent man, roundly liked by his peers and easy for any spectator to root for. In 1987, still pitching for the University of Michigan, Abbott was named to the U.S. National team, which positioned him to compete in Havana, Cuba, as the Cold War still raged. He called that experience, and another shortly thereafter at the Pan-American Games in Indianapolis, a “great way….to close the gap of understanding between ourselves and others.” He was 19 at the time.

During the Americans’ series in Cuba, Abbott’s leaping stop of a Cuban batter’s infield grounder, and his in-one-motion throw for the putout—all with his one hand—had Cuban fans “on their feet,” he said then, “going crazy, buzzing for about five minutes.” Abbott was an instant sensation there, and even shook hands with Cuban president Fidel Castro.

When Abbott was asked, during the Pan-Am Games, what the football coach at his college—a certain taskmaster named Bo Schembechler—would think of a Wolverine shaking the hand of a Communist leader, Abbott’s good-humored (and insightful) answer was, “Actually, there is a very similar presence between the two men. Fidel’s much bigger. About 6-4 and real wide. But there is a tough-guy, dictator sort of presence about both of them.”

And no judgement beyond that. So here’s the point: What so impressed those Cuban fans about Abbott’s athletic skill, the same ability that thrilled Yankee fans in 1993, realistically must be kept in a “love the win, not the winner” perspective.

In a post for Indiana University’s sports journalism center Web site a couple of years ago, veteran sportswriter Dave Kindred told of long-ago sports editor Stanley Woodward advising a young Red Smith (on Smith’s way to becoming the first sports journalist to win a Pulitzer Prize), “Stop godding up the players.” That jocks have an ability—much envied, for sure—to hit home runs, shoot three-pointers and evade tackles does not automatically make them better people. They still are just people.

Think of double-amputee Oscar Pistorius, whose fairly miraculous Olympic races on carbon-fiber prostheses made him the self-described “fastest man on no legs” and overturned the definition of “disabled.” Or O.J. Simpson, not only a football superstar but (personal experience here) among the most accommodating and respectful of interview subjects during his playing career—and wildly popular among teammates. Or Lance Armstrong, outrageously dominant on a bike and enormously life-affirming to fellow cancer survivors.

It turned out that what those folks could do on the playing field was no window on the soul. And reminded that, if we’re not careful, we set ourselves up with counterfeit idols.

Just as true, though: Jim Abbott’s story indeed was thoroughly uplifting.