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| Photo: Seattle Times |
Bouton, a twenty-one game-winner for the New York Yankees in 1963 would injure his arm two years later and find himself looking to hang around the game using any means necessary- even transitioning to a knuckleball pitcher.
Bouton's attempts to stay in the major leagues were chronicled in my selection for the best baseball book ever written by anyone, but hands down the best by a player or former player- Ball Four.
Ball Four was Bouton's diary of the 1969 season, a season that saw expansion inflate the league by four teams, therefore, giving a large number of journeymen a chance to hook up in the bigs rather than triple a baseball.
Considering the four-team expansion (baseball has never expanded by more than two teams in one season before or since), anyone that played on one of those teams was going to have some stories (I've often wished someone on the 69 Montreal Expos would have written a similar book, considering baseball's first Canadian team and in a predominantly French culture at that, it could have been hilarious) and with the articulate Bouton keeping track of the happenings, it had a chance to be a good book under the constraints of sports books of the time.
Instead, it became a classic as Bouton let loose on many of the daily antics of the clubhouse that had never been written about before and gave the reader a look at just how one-sided baseball was at the time between the organization and the player.
Players today have a huge advantage over the team when it comes to contractual issues and it's not all great for the game, but in the pre-free agency days, the scale was all in favor of the team and with Ball Four now at fifty years of age, it's really interesting to scan the grid for a day when contractual issues were controlled by the team.
Ball Four was a controversial book for its time, although it seems almost tame today, but Bouton paid the price for that controversy as by the time the 1970 season was over, Bouton had been demoted by the Houston Astros and after two starts for the Astros AAA affiliate in Oklahoma City, Bouton decided to exit baseball before the decision was made for him.
Bouton's retirement was justifiable by his performance (4-6 and an ERA just shy of five and a half), but adding that to the attention from the book from people in and out of the game, the message was easy to see- If you are going to violate the code of clubhouse- You better be good enough to be worth the hassle and at that stage of his career, Bouton simply wasn't.
However, there was a time that Jim Bouton's eccentricities were worth that hassle and more.
The Yankees could live with those when Bouton won 21 games in 1963 and added 18 more in 1964 along with two or the Yankees three victories in the World Series that they would lose to the Cardinals in seven games.
They couldn't when he injured his arm in 1965 and trying to pitch through it, finished 4-15 with an ERA of almost five as the Yankees decline from the top of the American League occurred all at once.
Bouton's record didn't bounce back (3-8) for a bad Yankees club in 1966, although he would have respectable stats otherwise (2.69 ERA in 19 starts), but spent 1967 and 68 between the majors and AAA and with name value, Bouton made sense to be brought into Seattle for their expansion voyage with the Pilots.
In the expansion summer of 1969 and as he wrote Ball Four, Bouton would spend time with three teams, the expansion Pilots, the Pilots AAA affiliate in the Vancouver Mounties and the Houston Astros, who obtained Bouton for the memorable (If you read the book) Dooley Womack, who was a Bouton teammate with the Yankees.
It's the stories of three teams, three cities and the ensuing escapades that made the book such a classic and I'm not sure it would have been the same had a star player written the book.
It's the fading player that's trying to hang on and the empathy you feel that makes the book timeless.
You find yourself connecting with Bouton and his family with the money concerns that come with a player with an uncertain future.
After retirement, Bouton continued to dabble in various fields.
Bouton moved into local sportscasting in New York with some success as his full-time job, but Bouton would be a delegate to the 1972 Democratic convention for their nominee George McGovern,
would be the villain opposite Elliott Gould in the 1973 film "The Long Goodbye" and attempt to bring Ball Four to television as the star of a CBS sitcom that lasted just five weeks.
Bouton's most surprising of all of his eclectic careers would come when Bouton limbered up his fingers and bringing the knuckleball off the shelf for a baseball comeback.
Bouton had a benefactor in Ted Turner, who put the word out to his baseball people in Atlanta that Bouton was to be given an opportunity and would make 21 starts in the Southern League for the Braves AA affiliate in Savannah.
Bouton would pitch well and it just so happened that a young Terry Pluto happened to be working for a Savannah newspaper and would write his first book on the season, although Bouton didn't fully cooperate, it's still an interesting look at the comeback- if you can find the long out of print book.
Bouton would make five starts for the 1978 Braves in September, finishing 1-3 with an ERA of just under five, but in three of those starts pitched very well including a win over the division contending Giants and a 2-1 loss to Sparky Anderson's Big Red Machine in which he pitched eight strong innings and might have had a chance to return for the Braves, who finished last in 1978.
Instead, Bouton decided to retire for good and move onto other things including being a co-inventor of Big League Chew bubble gum, attempting to save a Massachusetts ballpark from demolition and writing updated books on Ball Four before a stroke in 2012 damaged his memory and speaking.
Jim Bouton was always a fan-friendly player, but it was the writing of Ball Four that cemented his legacy as more than just an otherwise average career.
Writing that book not only made Jim Bouton a key part of baseball history, but it is also likely what keeps the memory of the only one year team in modern baseball history alive in the Seattle Pilots.
An otherwise forgettable bad baseball team manages to be remembered because of Ball Four and the wonderful stories from a time gone by and yet to any baseball fan worth their salt, they've read Ball Four at least once and so many can remember a name of an otherwise undistinguished player or a phrase from the book and connect it with "Seattle Pilots" or "Ball Four" without batting an eye.
I'm not sure if Ryan and I could spend more than an hour without a line from the book or a reference to a player or an event from it, even today!
Ball Four might have been hated by the baseball establishment of the time, but its contributions to generations of baseball fans and historians cannot be underestimated.
If you are a fan, Bouton's book likely almost locked you in as a fan and allowed us to lean in and feel like you were a part of something special- even if just through words and paper.
Thanks for everything and as always Smoke 'Em Inside.
