Ball Four

Ball Four

Paperback edition
Author	Jim Bouton
Country	United States
Language	English
Subject	baseball
Genre	autobiography
Publisher	World
Publication date	June 1970 (1970-06)
Media type	Print (Hardcover)
Pages	371 (first edition)
ISBN	0-02-030665-2

Ball Four is a book written by former Major League Baseball pitcher Jim Bouton in 1970. The book is a diary of Bouton's 1969 season, spent with the Seattle Pilots (during the club's only year in existence) and then the Houston Astros following a late-season trade. In it Bouton also recounts much of his baseball career, spent mainly with the New York Yankees. Despite its controversy at the time, with baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn's attempts to discredit it and label it as detrimental to the sport, it is considered to be one of the most important sports books ever written^[1] and the only sports-themed book to make the New York Public Library's 1996 list of Books of the Century. It also is listed in Time magazine's 100 greatest non-fiction books of all time.

Summary

Bouton 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.

Bouton chronicled the 1969 season—the turning point year in which Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, the Woodstock Festival was held, and the year of the Miracle Mets. In so doing, Bouton provided a frank, insider's look at professional sports teams. The book's context was the Seattle Pilots' only operating season, though Bouton was traded to Houston late in the year. Ball Four described a side of baseball that was previously unseen by writing about the obscene jokes and the drunken tomcatting of the players and about the routine drug use, including by Bouton himself. Bouton wrote with candor about the anxiety he felt over his pitching and his 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 ogling of women anywhere, including 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 previously been kept almost entirely out of the press.

Negative reaction

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 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 of the day's sportswriters also denounced Bouton, with Dick Young leading the way, calling Bouton and Shecter "social lepers".

The fact that Bouton had a mediocre pitching year in 1969 even by his more modest recent standards is not minimized in the book. 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.

Although Bouton wrote about Mickey Mantle mostly in a positive light, his comments on Mantle's excesses spawned most of the book's notoriety, and provoked Bouton's essential blacklisting from baseball. Bouton tried several times to make peace with Mantle, but not until Bouton sent a condolence note after Mantle's son Billy died of cancer in 1994 did Mantle contact Bouton. The two former teammates reconciled not long before Mantle's death.

Bouton's response

The following year Bouton 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 Dick Young's response when Bouton asked him about his "social leper" comment.

References