Ball Four

Aug 04, 2011 John rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ball Four might be the greatest baseball book ever written! Correction, Ball Four might be the greatest sports book ever written. What Bouton accomplished with Ball Four was to tear the cover off of professional sports by exposing the tangled core underneath the canned responses to interviews, the hagiography of sports heroes, and the mundane existence of living out of a suitcase for six months. The haloed Yankees hated this book as it painted their hero Mickey Mantle as less than a shining lig...more

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Sep 28, 2007 Brian rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Baseball fans/smart asses

Fantastic. Jim Bouton is an American hero. Also he invented Big League Chew.
I can only hope there's someone who's as big a curmudgeon as Jim is in the big leagues now.

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Jul 19, 2007 Tim Bernhardt rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who loves baseball

Whenever you want to complain about how much baseball players are making, read this book about the times during the reserve clause when owners owned the rights to players in perpetuity. Jim Bouton was a young fireballer who was used as piece of meat by the Yankees then discarded a few seasons later when he blew out his arm. "Ball Four" follows his story a few years after that, when he is desperately trying to keep his major league career going by developing a knuckleball, a pitch his old-school...more

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Apr 05, 2008 Diane Ayres rated it 5 of 5 stars

I read it because it was most often cited as the favorite book of so many guys I knew who came of age in the '70s. Much to my surprise, I loved it. Jim Bouton is a Wit. It's a an amusing, as well instructive, narrative on the mid-20th Century psyche of the American male, which continues to influence our culture (and politics) to this day. Frankly, it gave me more useful insight into "guys" than anything I've ever read. And it makes the perfect bar mitzvah gift: totally delights the boys and terr...more

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Sep 08, 2008 Andy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Billed as one of the most (if not the most) important sports book ever, Ball Four reads as a diary of Jim Bouton's struggle to stay relevant in 1969 having reinvented himself as a knuckleball pitcher. It's important because at the time it blew the lid off the use of "Greenies" (amphetamines) womanizing, overdrinking, and other such habits rampant in the baseball world.

Now, on its own with all of these things common knowledge, the book still reads well. There's as much in there about illegal acti...more

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Sep 01, 2008 Matthew rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: baseball fans

This is not the book for those of you yearning for the old days when ballplayers played for their love of the game. If you wish steroid scandals would just get brushed under the rug and The Mick was raking in Yankee stadium again, Ball Four might just break your heart a little. Jim Bouton opened a door that has never been forced shut again when he aired the Yankees' (and by extension, major league baseball's) dirty laundry. This is a genuinely funny and enlightening book written by an insider wi...more

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May 15, 2007 Beverly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Christina, Brooke

The first real baseball tell-all, very intelligent, very funny, don't read it if you think baseball players are god. When the Sox won the World Series it was Jim Bouton who, in a newspaper editorial, reminded Sox fans that it wasn't the "curse of the bambino" that was the cause of their continued hard luck, it was, in fact, the "curse of the Pumpserino." Pumpsie Green (who worked at Berkeley High for a time) was the first black player on the last team to integrate. Anyway, that's TMI, I know, bu...more

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Aug 10, 2011 Greg added it

So the controversy surrounding this book has long since faded, and although the book talks about mild drug use and general incivility by major league baseball players, don't read this if you expect a huge expose on scandals in the sport.

What the book does talk about, which is fascinating, are all the ways that the sport gets politicized. It's not the meritocracy that it seems - it's not the best players on the best teams getting rewarded for their talent.

It's about sometimes worthless managers...more

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May 11, 2013 Jason Speck rated it 5 of 5 stars

Bouton's Ball Four was a landmark in sports writing when it came out in 1970: for the first time, fans got to see what really went on behind the closed doors of the locker room: drinking, drugs, sex and other matters baseball would have rather kept hidden. In doing so, Bouton violated the mantra of the clubhouse: "What you say here, what you see here, what you do here, and what you hear here, let it stay here." Worse, he named names, including his own. As a result, he was blackballed from baseba...more Bouton's Ball Four was a landmark in sports writing when it came out in 1970: for the first time, fans got to see what really went on behind the closed doors of the locker room: drinking, drugs, sex and other matters baseball would have rather kept hidden. In doing so, Bouton violated the mantra of the clubhouse: "What you say here, what you see here, what you do here, and what you hear here, let it stay here." Worse, he named names, including his own. As a result, he was blackballed from baseball for years afterwards.

But to mistake this book for a simple tell-all would be to sell it short. Bouton is never gratuitous in his telling of the raunchier details: he's simply telling it like it is, and leaving the reader to pass judgment. He also explores some of the more serious socio-economic issues facing baseball and sports in 1970. Baseball was still struggling with racial integration in 1970, almost a quarter-century after Jackie Robinson, and Bouton reflects on the strange divide amongst players who were spending every day together. Many of baseball's other struggles exposed in the book mirror what was happening in American society at that time. Questioning the status quo and the establishment's authority was happening everywhere, and baseball was helplessly along for the ride. Many of the conflicts in the book reflect the shifts taking place, and reading about it with forty years' distance is a fascinating exercise.

Bouton also explores a baseball culture where players are still at the mercy of their clubs--there is no free agency, players can be cut mid-year with no compensation, and those who don't conform are targets. Players in 1970 were 'meat,' a commodity to be used and discarded. Some of this still exists, but today's fan is mostly unaware of how little power players had (and by comparison, how little they made) in this era. Bouton himself was a victim of a Yankee organization that overused his arm until he couldn't throw anymore, then tossed him aside, leaving him to attempt a comeback as a knuckle-ball pitcher that is the nominal center of the book.

I loved this book as a kid--the baseball anecdotes were hilarious, and I found myself laughing at them just as hard today. What I appreciate reading it many years later is the way that Bouton lays bare, without artifice or bias, both himself and the game he loves, allowing us to see a pivotal era in American sports history with clarity, and from a unique vantage point. (less)

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Apr 12, 2013 Cheryl Gatling added it · review of another edition

I'm not sure what I expected from this very famous book, which I had heard about most of my life. I had heard that it was an expose of what really went on in baseball, and that it exposed rampant drug use in particular. I guess I expected that it would have an agenda, that its purpose was to dish dirt. It was nothing of the kind. It was a light-hearted ramble. It was funny gossip. I imagined that Jim Bouton was something of a clown, telling silly stories, and people used to say to him, "You're s...more

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Mar 01, 2013 Ross L. rated it 5 of 5 stars

I just finished this classic a ground breaking memoir, which was extremely contraversial when first published in 1970. Jim Bouton was struggling to salvage what was once a promising pitching career. The book covers the 1969 baseball season and his time with the expansion Seattle Pilots (who lasted one season before moving to Milwaukee) and his mid season trade to the Houston Astros.
Bouton was considered an outsider, non conformist, free thinker - who questioned decisions. He simply did not fit i...more

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Oct 27, 2012 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was amazingly fun.

When I was a kid I read a number of baseball stories, but they were all very gosh-wow about the players. Which is a good thing: it's what I needed as a young boy. On the other hand, it turns out that baseball players are real people, and have their good points and bad.

This book is a great look at the game from the inside. Some of the revelations were shocking when it was released, but seem pretty tame now. ("News flash! Professional baseball players often want to fool arou...more

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Sep 09, 2012 Tom rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ball Four is an insider’s look at the world of baseball through the eyes of former New York Yankee phenom Jim Bouton. It is written in the first person style and tells the story of Bouton’s 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros.

I wouldn’t say that it is the most well-written book I’ve ever read, but I’m giving it five stars because of both the ground-breaking nature of the volume and the honest portrayal of major league life that many fans still deny. In the book Bouton details

...more

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Jul 25, 2012 Al rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rereading “Ball Four” for the first time since 1970, I was struck by how today’s readers would be baffled by the impact that the book originally had on the sports world. In an era when it’s not unusual for sports figures to tweet their comments about coaches, fans, and fellow players immediately following a game, I’m not sure that today’s fan realizes what a big deal “Ball Four” once was. Pitcher Jim Bouton’s candor about his teammates (past and present), coaches, managers and Major League Baseb...more

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Jun 16, 2012 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read the 30th Anniversary edition of this book. It included the original diary of Jim Bouton's 1969 season as a major league pitcher trying to reinvent himself, an update 10 years later, 20 years later, and finally 30 years later.

The meat of the book is fantastic. I was underwhelmed with the shocking revelations, of course. This might have something to do with the fact that I am reading the book in 2012, and not 1970. And, the revelations are no worse than what we would see in an average sitco...more I read the 30th Anniversary edition of this book. It included the original diary of Jim Bouton's 1969 season as a major league pitcher trying to reinvent himself, an update 10 years later, 20 years later, and finally 30 years later.

The meat of the book is fantastic. I was underwhelmed with the shocking revelations, of course. This might have something to do with the fact that I am reading the book in 2012, and not 1970. And, the revelations are no worse than what we would see in an average sitcom. But, the story of how teams traveled, and Bouton's personal look at coaches and fellow players made for an interesting read. I also thought it was interesting how casually he would talk about the girls on the road that players would easily pick up, and how it contrasted against the stories of his happy family life. I loved the stories about the kids and how they dealt with new teams and living in new cities.

The first couple of afterwards were interesting, but not mindblowing. We did get to find out that he split from his wife, so I guess the happy family life wasn't quite as happy as he thought. (I read that his ex wife wrote a book with Mike Marshall's wife. It sounds like the standard spousal tell all. I did find it interesting that Bouton's quote was a complaint about telling the world all of his family secrets. Well.... He kind of already did the same thing, and had to live with the infidelity, so I thought that was a lame complaint. Oh well.) The afterwards are a lot better written than the actual book, so I am guessing that his new wife (who is some sort of professor) played a part in editing his prose and making it sound really good. Anyway, as I said they were interesting, but not really that great. Until we get to the final afterward. That was an incredible eulogy to his daughter. Like a novel, the kid who early in the book is impossible to hurt, gets killed in a car accident, and the father only arrives right when she dies. Her death, and Bouton's return to Yankee Stadium make for a chapter that in itself is equal to the entire book. The book was interesting in it's look into baseball clubhouses, this chapter was amazing in it's story of a Father's love and the grief over the death of a daughter. I have to admit I cried real tears through this chapter.

It's definitely a product of it's times. But, having said that the book is an interesting read at any time. He comes across poorly when he is so bitter about today's ballplayers. After having lived through having to beg for pay raises, you would think he would celebrate the modern day player who finally have the upper hand in the situation. Anyway, the book on the whole is excellent. The writing in the final afterward was so good that I added a half a star to my rating.
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May 25, 2012 Derek Dowell rated it 4 of 5 stars

Prior to 1970, the rule in baseball was you better not talk publicly about what the sport and its participants were really like in the clubhouse, on the field, and traveling from city to city. But then along came Jim Bouton. Once a flame-throwing, twenty-game winner and starting pitcher for the New York Yankees, Bouton lost his fastball and found himself working middle relief for the expansion Seattle Pilots, desperately trying to develop a knuckleball and taking notes about pro ball player shen...more Prior to 1970, the rule in baseball was you better not talk publicly about what the sport and its participants were really like in the clubhouse, on the field, and traveling from city to city. But then along came Jim Bouton. Once a flame-throwing, twenty-game winner and starting pitcher for the New York Yankees, Bouton lost his fastball and found himself working middle relief for the expansion Seattle Pilots, desperately trying to develop a knuckleball and taking notes about pro ball player shenanigans that would eventually be crafted into the book, Ball Four, which went on to be named one of the Greatest 100 Non-Fiction Books of All Time by Time Magazine.

When Ball Four hit the shelves in 1970, it caused an instant uproar. Players, managers, coaches, and club executives couldn’t believe that one of their own had gone public with such a behind-the-scene tale of promiscuity, carousing, illicit drugs, and general all around jackassery. A similar book released today would draw barely a raised eyebrow, but jaded 21st century readers should remember that professional baseball players use to be looked upon by the general public as demigods who could do no wrong. Back then Mickey Mantle wasn’t a loudmouthed alcoholic but rather an all American boy from Oklahoma who could knock the cover off the ball.

The baseball establishment came down hard on Bouton essentially for having the intestinal fortitude to tell the truth about pro baseball. He was quickly branded a traitor and “social leper.” With echoes of the Spanish Inquisition in the background, Commissioner Bowie Kuhn called Bouton into his office and tried to force him to recant the events portrayed in Ball Four, saying the publication of that nastiness was “detrimental to baseball.” No dice, Mr. Kuhn. There are some people you just can’t strong arm.

These days, would the last person who still believes ballplayers are a breed apart please turn out the lights as you leave? This is no condemnation. They are simply human beings like the rest of us, with all the flaws, foibles, and stupidity that entails.

Ball Four is presented in diary form, with Bouton providing day-by-day details of games, travel, minor-league demotions, and trades along the way. Written with real humor and skill by Bouton and accomplice, New York sportwriter Leonard Shecter, Ball Four dared to assert that players spent a large part of their time ogling women in the stands (called beaver shooting) and popping amphetamines in the clubhouse like candy.

But perhaps the real power of the book comes from Bouton’s anxiety over making the transition from a true star who threw so hard his hat fell off with every pitch to a little-used reliever trying to master the unpredictable (to both pitcher and hitter) knuckleball and hang on to a job. As a lifelong sports fan who somehow reached the age of 44 having never read Ball Four – all I can say is the wait was worth it. Make no mistake, though, this book is for anyone who appreciates a glimpse behind the curtain to places where riff raff like us aren’t often invited.

The updated version of Ball Four includes new material by Bouton tracing his move into middle age and beyond, and chronicles his comeback attempt with the Atlanta Braves, the loss of his daughter to a car wreck, the break-up of his first marriage, and an eventual acceptance of the fact that his aging body could no longer allow him to even pitch in local summer leagues for fun.

Good stuff, Jimmy Bouton, good stuff.(less)

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May 08, 2012 Greg rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

From http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2012/...

I hadn't read Jim Bouton's Ball Four since I was a teenager in the 1980s, when a lot of the cultural references from 1969 went over my head but I had found it really funny. Reading it years later, it's even funnier. Bouton was once a Yankees ace, but arm trouble led him to take up the knuckle ball and by 1969 he ended up on the original Seattle Pilots team, and then the Astros after a trade. The book is his account of that season, by turns thoughtful...more

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Jan 19, 2010 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

With an understanding that this supposedly represents the first of a, now, endless stream of MLB “tell-alls” – a genre I’m not necessarily interested in – I thought I’d give it a shot. I immediately found it a dull, piecemeal collage of day-to-day anecdotes that didn’t really come off as anything approaching scandalous. Ballplayers drink beer? Some have “Baseball Annies” (viz. groupies)? Greenies? Certainly these things are bad – except beer…and girls if you’re single …and what the hell with the...more With an understanding that this supposedly represents the first of a, now, endless stream of MLB “tell-alls” – a genre I’m not necessarily interested in – I thought I’d give it a shot. I immediately found it a dull, piecemeal collage of day-to-day anecdotes that didn’t really come off as anything approaching scandalous. Ballplayers drink beer? Some have “Baseball Annies” (viz. groupies)? Greenies? Certainly these things are bad – except beer…and girls if you’re single …and what the hell with the amphetamines if it equalizes the playing field in relation to all the asterisk guys these days? Whatever. Obviously the reader (at least one born roughly as the book went to press) must understand that this was penned – or dictated – within a previous, clean/buzz cut era on the heels of Opie Taylor gone fishing:

It was an idyllic time. All fans of baseball were of the awe-shucks typology. The Babe had been a tribute to pure athleticism. Mickey Mantle wasn’t really doing shots at that hotel bar. Baseball owners weren’t really in violation of the Sherman Act. No one who was exposed to Vietnam, fire-hosed children, riots, assassinations, and potential nuclear proliferation on a day-to-day basis could possibly believe that ball players would use the F-bomb and scratch! Nobody could be prepared for this exposé! - M. Grogan

Alright, barring my typical BS digressions, as I hesitantly worked through about 100 pages of this thing, I realized I began to enjoy this guy’s story, or notes, or what have you. In a strange way it all comes together despite the lack of discernable thesis – just some dude and his diary (and patient editor). In fact he seems to deftly disperse occasional extra-baseball societal items here and there as a kind of contextual grounding tool that positions the relative silliness of a professionally structured game within the more turbulent context of the era. The big baseball “exposé” is really just telling locker room stories where casual tales about unsophisticated management, the machinations of (more than) occasional meathead teammates, and player rights exploitation pre-free agency cautiously express the reality about the highest echelon of the sport. This likely deconstructed the idealized views of the Topps card-wielding youth who was forbidden from reading it by mom. For the adults, Bouton proved/proves fairly comical and clever. Additionally, like any good baseball book, it ends with the Astros predictably blowing another playoff bid in the last week or so... It’s a pretty good read if you’re into the sport and certainly I can imagine the consternation of some embarrassed players, owners, etc. that resulted in Bouton’s subsequent Black-listing.

I read the version including the Fifth Ball – essentially the ten-year revisitation – that, while more coherent and thankfully brief, seemed an undesired appendage. The best part was the “where are they now” portion listing former managers and players washing cars, coaching in the minors, or vanished. Obviously this is a “Where is Jim now?” addition, with the post-book network news career, amazing baseball comeback, and invention of Big League Chew Bubble Gum. I understand that he’s written another book or two so I’m not sure if those cover the post 1970 years, but they seem to want a book of their own for readers more interested than myself.
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Dec 25, 2009 Charles Berman rated it 4 of 5 stars

I picked up "Ball Four" based on its formidable reputation as the best baseball book ever written. Immediately I knew that this real-time diary of a struggling knuckleballing relief pitcher for an expansion team over the 1969 baseball season was extraordinarily fascinating, entertaining, and funny. For this credit is due not just to Jim Bouton's memorable teammates and coaches but to his rare candor and observation.

As I read on "Ball Four" became more an more of an unforgettable character study...more

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Apr 26, 2009 MacK rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: baseball, non-fiction

Sad to say, baseball nut that I am, this book stayed below my radar for years on end, when it finally became a known quantity in my life as a fan I viewed it as something rather like Great Expectations definitely on the reading list, just waiting for you to tackle it and be stunned.

However, rarely does the book live up to the hype. I fully expected a gripping story full of mystery and wonder, wit and grace, evocative prose reliving the highs and lows of a season on the road. And in the course of...more

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May 07, 2012 Kelly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, first-reads

As a lifetime baseball fan, I've long been aware of this memoir and the reported effect it had on the game 40+ years ago. As a result, I was excited that winning the First Reads giveaway finally gave me a (free) reason to read it. Like many, it's hard to read it and not wonder how this charming diary of the 1969 season could be considered the most scandalous thing in sports for so long. In it he reveals what are now well understood (and even accepted) facets in the life of a pro athlete - sweari...more

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Dec 31, 2011 Joe Gutowski rated it 4 of 5 stars

As a aspiring baseball historian who's read a number of present-day books, Bouton's book doesn't come off as earth-shattering or all that revolutionary in comparison to what gets revealed in other sports books of today. However, given the timeframe, the topics discussed and the sheer reality that Bouton brings to the world of baseball in 1969, it is, in fact, highly revolutionary and brings the common reader in touch with the behind the scenes world of professional baseball, both the good and th...more

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Feb 18, 2011 Phil rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review thing asks: "What did you think?" My answer: "Jim Bouton is full of shit."

I try to refrain from using profanity in things like book reviews, but in this case, it is the only way to categorize it.

Apparently, when this book was first released, it cause a big stir in the baseball community and in the fandom of America. Mostly, I can see why: it is boring, and Bouton takes all 400+ pages to whine about money, coaches, his knuckleball, wanting to start/pitch, and he relishes every opportu...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Bob Redmond rated it 4 of 5 stars

BALL FOUR chronicles the late career of one-time ace Jim Bouton. A fastball pitcher for the Yankees, he played with Mickey Mantle, won 21 games in 1963 (and 18 in 1964), went 2-1 in World Series play and was an All Star. After five years he got caught by injuries before teaching himself the knuckeball and making a resurgence with the expansion Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros. After retiring in 1970, he made a remarkable comeback at age 40, making his way all the way from AA to the big leagues...more BALL FOUR chronicles the late career of one-time ace Jim Bouton. A fastball pitcher for the Yankees, he played with Mickey Mantle, won 21 games in 1963 (and 18 in 1964), went 2-1 in World Series play and was an All Star. After five years he got caught by injuries before teaching himself the knuckeball and making a resurgence with the expansion Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros. After retiring in 1970, he made a remarkable comeback at age 40, making his way all the way from AA to the big leagues again with the Atlanta Braves.

The book traces his year of 1969, during which he was trying to make the big leagues again (writing "big leagues" reminds me to note that Bouton created "Big Leauge Chew" bubblegum with a colleague). At the time, relievers were mostly pitchers who couldn't make the starting rotation, not specialists like today. Knuckleballers, too, were out of luck: no one wanted to start a trick pitcher who only had one pitch which traveled 20 MPH too slow.

So Bouton had a lot of time to make notes for his book, which he had actually begun a year earlier, and about which he got serious after a journalist friend helped him with a book deal. Written mostly in diary format, the book also includes sections from before and after 1969. Bouton is a good writer, and covers everything: clubhouse life, strategy, contemporary culture, team politics, drugs. He's also hilarious and once in a while poetic. From anecdotes about the Mick, to character sketches of his fellow players, musings on race, original country and western lyrics (written in the bullpen with a teammate), Bouton's prose is steadily engaging.

This is a typical passage:

Today I've been thinking about God and baseball, or is it baseball and God? ... [and] the philosophy that religion is the reason an athlete is good at what he does. Since no one ever has an article saying "God didn't help me" or "It's in my muscles, not Jesus," kids pretty soon get the idea that Jesus helps all athletes and the ones who don't speak up are just shy or embarassed.

So I've been tempted sometimes to say into a microphone that I feel I won tonight because I don't believe in God. I mean, just for the sake of balance, to let the kids know that belief in a deity or "Pitching for the Master" is not one of the criteria for major-league success. But I guess I never will.

The book was a cause célèbre on its release, and Bouton became a paraiah among players and throughout baseball. While his book was not the first sports "kiss and tell," it was the best-selling, and helped (with the advent free agency) take the bloom off the rose of Major League Baseball.

*

WHY I READ THIS BOOK: My hometown team (the Seattle Mariners) were, briefly, in the chase for the division lead. Headed into mid-summer they were only two games back of the Texas Rangers, and playing like they could contend all year. Between baseball fever and my own reading drought brought on by overwork, I was inspired to look up a baseball book, and Bouton's had always been on my list. I was delighted to learn that much of Bouton's year occurs in Seattle, of all places, with the expansion Pilots. The Pilots were not contenders, and moved after one season to Milwaukee. Seattle finally got another baseball franchise in 1977, and with a couple of exceptional seasons have only proved the rule that this town can't produce a winner. Our big highlight this year was a marketing campaign that celebrated how many games we won 10 years ago. Go team! Oh, and this summer? We followed our flirtation with first place by losing 17 games in a row and making our way to a 95-loss season. Can't wait until next year!(less)

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Jan 03, 2013 Will rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Like everybody else on the club I ached with Mantle when he had one of his numerous and extremely painful injuries. I often wondered, though, if he might have healed quicker if he'd been sleeping more and loosening up with the boys at the bar less. I guess we'll never know.

What we do know, though, is that the face he showed in the clubhouse, as opposed to the one he reserved for the outside world, was often one of great merriment.

I remember one time he'd been injured and didn't expect to play...more

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May 30, 2012 Kath rated it 5 of 5 stars

Many years ago, I met the man who became my husband, who just happened to be a baseball player wannabe. He was charming and I fell in love with the game as well as him. Somehow I married him even though he blew his cover by recommending Ball Four to me. I discovered that all of his best lines were written by Jim Bouton! (Breck girl, really?!) When Bouton's book first came out, the book was viewed as giving the insider's view on the underbelly of baseball and its heroes. But for me the book was -...more

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Aug 26, 2007 Adam rated it 5 of 5 stars

Holy shit. This was always described to me as the best book about baseball ever, and twenty pages in I knew they were right. Still seems shockingly candid decades later (everyone takes drugs! baseball players look up girls' skirts from the dugout!), but the real prize is the vivid portrait of the real, unglossed day-to-day life of a baseball player that Bouton offers us. (Plus, he's a pretty funny damn writer.)

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Jun 27, 2007 Ben rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

One of my favorite books. Pretty boring, really. Bouton is a mildly iconoclastic fellow who nevertheless contrasts sharply with his straight-laced teammates on the Yankees and Seattle Pilots in the late '60s, who hate hippies and so forth. It's a diary format; he goes through the '68 season, frets about his performance and tells funny, dirty stories about teammates, who despised him when the book was published.

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Aug 08, 2012 Byron rated it 5 of 5 stars

Ball Four is one of those books that I always thought I knew what it said and what it was about, and never had the least interest in picking it up and reading it. Although I would describe myself as a above average baseball fan, and my general interest in all topics baseball as high, for some reason, it had just never struck me that this was a book I should read. Maybe it was the fact that I knew Jim Bouton had been a Yankee. Maybe it was the fact that I knew the book had been controversial and...more Ball Four is one of those books that I always thought I knew what it said and what it was about, and never had the least interest in picking it up and reading it. Although I would describe myself as a above average baseball fan, and my general interest in all topics baseball as high, for some reason, it had just never struck me that this was a book I should read. Maybe it was the fact that I knew Jim Bouton had been a Yankee. Maybe it was the fact that I knew the book had been controversial and somewhere along the way I had heard critical opinions of it. Maybe it was that no-one ever grabbed me and said, "Byron, you should read this book!" (Or if they did, I didn't hear them.)

But over the past four years, I have become a ravenous listener to audiobooks, and over the last two years, have discovered that I have missed a lot of good reading in my life. Shakespeare, Charles Dickens, Winston Churchill have all caught my attention with their classic works. Then, last month, I starting browsing the baseball related books, looking to shift gears, and Ball Four caught my eye. I downloaded it from Audible.com, and noticed that the book was actually read by the author. I didn't notice until I started the book that it also include three updates at 10 year intervals after the initial book was published. More about those updates in a minute.

Starting the book, I found it somewhat interesting initially. Bouton starts the book at the beginning of the 1969 season, when he was playing for the expansion Seattle Pilots, and he makes frequent reference to his glory years with the Yankees earlier in the 60's, but he also makes it clear early on that things went sour for him in New York, although he never really presents the New York history in story-telling form. His focus stays on the 1969 season, and he presents it in almost diary format, where he bounces back and forth from things that happened or were said each day to reminisces from earlier in his career, with a particularly humorous way and seldom flattering way of describing current and former teammates. At times, he is absorbed with his own sense of self-importance, trying to figure out why he doesn't get respect from management or teammates.

A few weeks into the season, I began to wonder if I really wanted to finish the whole book. This was going to get tiresome going through the whole season, and I knew the Seattle Pilots did not have a good season, so there wasn't going to be any good baseball story there, I thought. But, perhaps for lack of a ready alternative, I hung in there, kept listening, and began to find myself absorbed in the season, and recognizing how incredibly thorough of a look inside the life of baseball players in the 1960s I was receiving.

By the time we got to the end of the season, and the end of the initial book, I felt thoroughly entertained and appreciative of the service Bouton had provided to me to bring the major league of my youth to life in a new way. There were times, as Bouton read his own book, when he would chuckle at the stories he was telling, which was annoying a couple of times, but on the whole, added to the read. Even as he poked fun at his teammates and managers for their foolishness, you saw that the pot was calling the kettle black, and I came to appreciate that Bouton was both egotistical and self-deprecating, and I decided I really liked the guy. If I had been a player, I would probably have been a lot like him.

It was clear why the book had been controversial. It was probably the first baseball tell-all book, and he mocked some of the greats of the game. He portrayed Joe Schultz, the manager of the Pilots, and Sal Maglie, the pitching coach, as men without a clue as to how to make strategic decisions to win games, and he revealed the incredible cheap-ness of the owners. Bouton was earning a salary of $22,000 in 1969, so this was back in the days before any Tom, Dick, or Harry could strap on a glove and earn a million dollars, and the stories he tells on the owners are priceless.

Stopping at the end of the original Ball Four would have left a good taste in my mouth, and I would have written a 4 star review, and all would have been well. But, Bouton added the three updates, from 1980, 1990, and 2000, and this book jumped from 4 stars to "5 stars plus" in my estimation.

Now a disclaimer here, the last update is tough...it involves a crying Bouton telling the sad story of the death of a family member. I'm a sap.. I appreciated it. You may not. It is not long, and if that's not your cup of tea, speed through it and move on.

But the richness of the updates come in two other ways: 1) he gives incredible insight into life after baseball. Such as going to visit the former teammate who now has a plumbing business was just wonderful. 2) he discusses the evolution of the response to the book, which was not well received my many teammates or by the baseball establishment. It was notorious, far beyond what it deserved in my opinion, but that just speaks to the shallow-mindedness of so many of the people in baseball. But through the updates, one gets a 30 year retrospective of how one man tried to take a stand, and to my way of thinking, we are better for his efforts.

If you are an Old baseball fan and have not read this book, get the audio version with Bouton reading it, and indulge yourself. If you are a young baseball fan, and don't know who Jim Bouton is, and did not know there was ever a major league team called the Seattle Pilots, let me introduce you to some baseball history. I think you will find it hard to believe much of what you read, but in the end you will realize the magnitude of the cultural change of the past 40 years since the concept of "free agency" was introduced into professional sports.
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Oct 06, 2011 Scott rated it 5 of 5 stars

One of the most important sports books every written. Even more so than Jerry Kramer's Instant Replay, Ball Four takes the reader not just into the locker room, but into the mind set of the professional athlete. It humanizes the athlete by knocking him off his pedestal. The book also changed sports journalism, however, by publicizing things athletes previously thought were private.

Bouton is a very good writer, and gives enough game highlights to appeal to the sports fan, and fleshes out the pers...more

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