baseball

"Ball Four" is a diary that covers the year of a baseball player, in this case Jim Bouton, who spent the 1969 season with the expansion Seattle Pilots and then the Houston Astros. Entertaining on many levels, "Ball Four" also serves as a mirror of the times -- in the late 1960s, many established concepts and ideas, in politics, music, mass media, and sports, were being shattered. Baseball, always about five years behind the curve, was always thought of as a game that was played by wholesome, All-American men. They were our heroes. Ball Four, however, sheds new light and revealed, for the first time, that baseball players, even some of the game's superstars, are human.
Bouton tells all, in, by today's standards, a tame fashion. We read about everything -- ballplayers cheating on their wives, playing with hangovers, racial problems between teammates, players taking uppers before a game, etc. Bouton is a very insightful writer and presents the material in a humorous manner, the humor, or barbs, is directed at his teammates, managers, coaches, and, in many instances, at himself.
Baseball was outraged when the book first came out in 1970. Many players and baseball executives considered Bouton a turncoat. But the years have shown that Ball Four was a groundbreaking book, one that set the standard for tell-all books to come. These other books, however, have never reached the level of excellence of Bouton's "Ball Four."

After Thirty years I reread this book and it is not the book I remembered. It's better. It was then, it is now, simply the best Baseball Book ever.

But it is now more than that. It's history.

When the Original edition of Ball Four came out it was considered scandalous and an unflattering expose on Baseball. Now it's history. American history. And the continuing autobiography of a man who is so much more than just a ballplayer.

Jim Bouton reveals what baseball was like in the 1960's: Players getting less than $10,000 a year in salary, General Managers lying to players and tricking them into low salaries. It is just hard to believe all that was baseball then.

Ball Four is famous, or infamous for giving great insight into several players. Yet in retrospect, not much is really told about the individual players. Mickey Mantle drank a lot and didn't sigh autographs; Roger Maris didn't always hustle. This is small stuff compared with what is told today. Still this is the stuff that started it all.

But the best part are the epilogues, written in 1980, 1990 and 2000, because they add a new perspective to the book. The author points out that maybe if more time was spent dealing with Mantle's drinking problem and less time spent hiding it and blasting Bouton maybe the Mick would be here today.

The book is fascinating and funny. And Real. I began t o understand what it most be like to be on the road, bored, for so many months a year. I began to understand why they did what they did.

Mr. Bouton deflates the image of the baseball player: They drank, took greenies (speed) and looked at girls in the stands. Shocking news! But he also deflates the images of coaches and managers. A player that floats in and out of the book is a rookie to the new Seattle Pilots. He talent is not overlooked by the players but it is overlooked by management is sent down to the minors and then traded to Kansas City. His name is Lou Pinella. A similar story is told about Mike Marshall.

Jim Bouton discusses his return to Yankee Stadium for old-timers day and the events surrounding it. In the end, that is what affected me the most. Having read the book thirty years ago, I thought it would be interesting to read the epilogues first. Their you learn the heart-breaking news that the Boutons lost their daughter, Laurie, in an accident in 1997. It changed everything, even the original Ball Four section. Mr. Bouton was devoted to Baseball, but he was devoted to family. In Ball Four we are introduced to Laurie at age three when she comes to a doubleheader with Mrs. Bouton and their two other children. Then, she is ironically nicknamed "The Unsinkable Molly Brown." Yet it is her spirit that gets Bouton invited back to the Old Timers Day at Shea. Mel Stottlemyre is mentioned in the original 1969 part of the book. Yet it is his conversation with Bouton, about losing his son in 1981, that will remain with me. You can't read it without tearing up.

I guess we like to think that baseball is everything to those who play it. Ball Four was the first to show what it was really like to get go through a season. In his Final Pitch Mr. Bouton shows what it takes to get through life. I hope he has a few more chapters in him. I'm sure Laurie would hope so too.

My teacher for my History of Sports class recommended this book and I bought it. He told us that is was a very controversial book at the time because it spoke of things that were better left unspoken. That is the best recommendation you can get!

It is a very funny book, sometimes Bouton describes things that could be in a movie about baseball, a National Lampoon version that is. There is drinking gambling and looking at girls from all angles. But didn't we all expect them to this anyway?

He was ostracized by baseball but it is really harmless fun, the new sections in this edition also talk about what happened after the first edition came out. Get it