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by: Jim Bouton
List Price: $15.95Amazon.com's Price: $10.85 You Save: $5.10 (32%)Prices subject to change. Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357092
EAN: 9780020306658
ISBN: 0020306652
Label: Wiley
Manufacturer: Wiley
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 465
Publication Date: July 12, 1990
Publisher: Wiley
Sales Rank: 32632
Studio: Wiley
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
A book deep in the American vein, so deep in fact it is by no means a sports book' —David Halberstam
'Ball Four is a people book, not just a baseball book.' —Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times
When Ball Four was first published in 1970, it hit the sports world like a lightning bolt. Commissioners, executives, players and sportswriters were thrown into a state of shock. Stunned. Scandalized. The controversy was front-page news.
Sportswriters called Bouton a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and a 'social leper.' Commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force the author to sign a statement saying that the book wasn't true. One team actually burned a copy of Ball Four in protest.And Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimers' Day at Yankee Stadium.
Fans, however, loved Ball Four and serious critics called it an important document. It was also very popular among people who didn't ordinarily follow baseball, because Ball Four is not strictly a book about baseball, but one about people who happen to be baseball players. And it's hilariously funny.
For the twentieth-anniversary edition of this historic book, Bouton has written a new epilogue, detailing his career as an inventor, his battles with the Wrigley Company over bubble gum, his take on the Pete Rose controversy, and how baseball looks two decades after he changed its public image forever.
Amazon.com Review:
As a player, former hurler Jim Bouton did nothing half-way; he threw so hard he'd lose his cap on almost every pitch. In the early '70s, he tossed off one of the funniest, most revealing, insider's takes on baseball life in Ball Four, his diary of the season he tried to pitch his way back from oblivion on the strength of a knuckler. The real curve, though, is Bouton's honesty. He carves humans out of heroes, and shines a light into the game's corners. A quarter century later, Bouton's unique baseball voice can still bring the heat.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Funny, Profane and Honest. Play Ball
This was a provocative book when it was first published. Jim Bouton, who had been a star pitcher for the New York Yankees, was trying to mount a comeback by working on a knuckleball in the bullpen of the expansion team Seattle Pilots less than five years later. He was a world away from pitching in two World Series in two successive seasons with players like Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as team mates.
His fastball could no longer shatter a pane of glass, but his astute observations ... Read More
Rating: - the first to expose how players used the groupies
Jim Bouton is a very bright man who probably could have been a scientist if he didn't go into baseball. In the 1960s when he played nobody wrote colorful exposes of the behind the scenes and road trip life of major league ball players. Bouton was the first with this book. It ended many friendships with teammates and probably broke up his marriage. The book might seem tame by todays standard. Alcohol was the players drug in those days and no one was shooting up steroids back then. But the book ... Read More
Rating: - important book
even now, the contents of "ball four" are as equally as contrary to what you think about the order of things as say the first time you hear that hawaiians aren't happy about being american. what this book has to say about institutions make it as valuable an american document as "on the road".
the only real debate i think that could be made over this assertion is who took more speed; kerouac or bouton?
the answer is kerouac.
leaving only one other question:
who took more ... Read More
Rating:  - Ball Four was a HIt
Ball Four is a journal of Jim Bouton's days in baseball. It is light hearted and pokes fun at himself and tells it like it was in the 1960's. I recommend it to anyone who is interested in the behind the scenes and what happens in the locker room.
Rating: - Knee Surgery Gift
Hubby had knee surgery and was laid up for 3 months.. did alot of reading when he wasn't in physical therapy.... GREAT BOOK
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