Ball Four
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| Ball Four | |
 |
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| Author | Jim Bouton |
|---|---|
| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Subject(s) | baseball |
| Genre(s) | autobiography |
| Publisher | Dell Publishing |
| Publication date | February 1971 |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 371 (first edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0020306652 |
Ball Four is a baseball book written by former Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Bouton in 1970. The book talks about Bouton's career with the New York Yankees, the Houston Astros, and primarily his season with the Seattle Pilots. Despite its controversy at the time, with baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn's attempts to discredit it and charging it detrimental to the sport, it is considered to be one of the most important sports books ever written.[1]
Contents |
[edit] Summary
Bouton had befriended sportswriter Leonard Shecter during his time with the Yankees. Shecter approached him with the idea of writing and publishing a season-long diary. Bouton, who had taken some notes during the 1968 season after having a similar idea, readily agreed.
What Bouton chronicled during his 1969 season was a frank, no-holds-barred insider's look at a professional sports team. The backdrop for the book was the Seattle Pilots' one and only operating season. Unlike previous sports tomes, Ball Four named names and made no attempt to protect the innocent or the guilty. Bouton did this by writing with almost complete honesty about the way a professional baseball team actually interacts—not only the heroic game-winning home runs, but also the petty jealousies, the obscene jokes, the drunken tomcatting of the players, and the routine drug use. Bouton and Shecter wrote with candor about Bouton's anxiety about his pitching role on the team. Bouton detailed his unsatisfactory relationships with teammates and management alike, his sparring sessions with Pilots manager Joe Schultz and pitching coach Sal Maglie, and the lies and minor cheating that has gone on in sports seemingly from time immemorial. Ball Four revealed publicly for the first time the degree of womanizing prevalent in the major leagues (including "beaver shooting," the spying on women from rooftops or from under the stands). Bouton also disclosed how rampant amphetamine or "greenies" usage was among players. Also revealed was the heavy drinking of Yankee legend Mickey Mantle, which had been almost entirely kept out of the press.
[edit] The making of a pariah
The fact that Bouton had a mediocre pitching year in 1969 even by his more modest recent standards is not minimized—Ball Four can also be viewed as the decline and fall of a former star pitcher. Arguing with the coaches (usually about his role with the team, his opinion that he should use the knuckleball exclusively, and his desire to throw between outings) and his outspoken views on politics (and everything else) meant that many considered him a malcontent and a subversive in the clubhouse. Early in the season he was sent to Seattle's minor-league affiliate in Vancouver, British Columbia (which caused him to miss being on the sole Topps Seattle Pilots baseball team card, as the photo used was taken in his absence), and was later traded during the season to the Houston Astros for Dooley Womack, who, like Bouton, was a former Yankee "phenom" himself.
Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn called Ball Four "detrimental to baseball," and tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying that the book was completely fictional. Bouton, however, refused to deny any of Ball Four's revelations. Many of Bouton's teammates never forgave him for publicly airing what he had learned in private about their flaws and foibles. The book made Bouton unpopular with many players, coaches and officials on other teams as well, as they felt he had betrayed the long-standing rule: "What you see here, what you say here, what you do here, let it stay here." Pete Rose took to yelling "Fuck you, Shakespeare!" from the dugout whenever Bouton was pitching. Many traditional sportswriters also denounced Bouton, with Dick Young leading the way, calling Bouton and Shecter "social lepers".
[edit] Bouton's response
Bouton seemed rather pleased by the commotion his book had kicked up, and the following year described the fallout from Ball Four and his ensuing battles with Commissioner Kuhn and others in another diary, entitled I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally (the title was actually Dick Young's response when Bouton personally made reference to his "social leper" comment).
[edit] Impact
The largest measure of Ball Four's impact its "opening of the floodgates" for other players no longer inhibited to openly chronicle their playing careers. The irony is that many of the athletes who seemed most offended by Bouton's candor in 1969, including Mickey Mantle, were the ones that went on to write memoirs of their own which were, in some respects, just as candid as Bouton's had been.
[edit] References
- ^ Rob Neyer. 'Ball Four' changed sports and books. ESPN. Retrieved on 2007-08-04.
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