Ball Four Re-Visited

I have been out of work for about three weeks now because of my foot and I have been desperately searching for reading material to have something to occupy my mind. I saw my copy of Ball Four sitting on a bookself and thought "Why not? I could use a good laugh."

It has been several years since I have read it cover-to-cover. The first time I read it was the mid-1980's about 15 years after it had been published and I got that copy out of the public library. It is a diary of Major League pitcher Jim Bouton's 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros.

Not only does it cover the daily life of a baseball player but it also covers relevant social issues of the day such as rascism, drugs, and touches on the Vietnam War. The baseball establishment was pissed when it came out. It made some of the major stars of the game (namely Mickey Mantle but included others of the Yankee Dynasty) look bad because of their off-field exploits. Drinking themselves senseless and "beaver shooting" from the roofs of hotels is a prime example. I really believe it got Jim Bouton blackballed from baseball.

I was only 5 or 6 when it was first published, playing tee-ball and too young to remember what the controversy was about. I still really don't understand why it was so controversial. It made the players of that era look human and was funny as hell. I would have loved to have written a book like that about my college years.

When I reread it, it was just as funny but thanks to the internet I was able to look up several of the players I had never heard of and the Seattle Pilots even have their own webpage now as does Jim Bouton. Several of the players that were mentioned in the book have started passing away. Greg Goossen comes to mind. It gave the book a whole new life and made it three-dimensional. I probably enjoyed it more now 40 years after the fact than I did 25 years ago when I first read it. Ball Four was named one of the 100 most important books of the 20th Century and it seems more relevant now.