RIP Jim Bouton

I got to spend a few hours with Jim Bouton in 2006 at the annual SABR convention in Seattle, WA. There was a reunion of former Seattle Pilots players and he also spoke at the convention's dinner. I saw him sitting alone at breakfast one morning and asked him could I join him? I know it was a little invasive, but I loved Ball Four and wanted to talk to him about it.

It was a great conversation about certain parts of the book, as well as his second book ("I Hope You Didn't Take It Personally") and we covered a lot of topics, although most of them were not suitable for publication here. We talked about greenies, groupies, cake decorating., practical jokes, stealing signs, locker room banter, bench jockeying, the Yankees, the Pilots, and the Astros and the craziest players he ever knew.

When he was signed by the Yankees in 1962, many people thought Jim Bouton was a cinch to be a star pitcher, but he actually found greater fame as the author of “Ball Four,” an irreverent, best-selling book that angered baseball’s hierarchy and changed the way journalists and fans viewed the sports world, died July 10 at his home in Great Barrington, Mass. He was 80.

He had a stroke in 2012 and five years later disclosed he had been diagnosed with cerebral amyloid angiopathy, a condition that causes vessels in the brain to burst under pressure. The death was confirmed by his wife, Paula Kurman.

He won 21 games for the Yankees in 1963 and 18 the following season, helping lead his team to the World Series both years.

After an arm injury, he lost his fastball and was relegated to the minor leagues before trying to revive his career as a knuckleball pitcher.

Bouton had often regaled listeners with tales of his antics in baseball, and as he sought to make the roster of the 1969 Seattle Pilots, he decided to take notes.

“Ball Four” — the title was suggested by a woman who overheard Mr. Bouton talking about his project in a bar — was published in 1970, with the editorial help of sportswriter Leonard Shecter.
Jim Bouton in 1970, the year “Ball Four” was published.

It was in the form of a season-long diary and was modeled in part on “The Long Season,” a 1960 book by big-league pitcher Jim Brosnan. But no one had ever captured the humor, profanity and pathos of a major league clubhouse with the candor that Mr. Bouton did in “Ball Four.”
“When I made it to the Yankees,” he told the New York Times in 1983, “it was like walking in this wonderland, this crazy place . . . With ‘Ball Four,’ I never meant to make an investigation of a subculture. I just wanted to share the nonsense.”