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38 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
A Groundbreaking, Entertaining, and Funny Book, May 9, 2002
"Ball Four" is a diary that covers the year of a baseball player, in this case Jim Bouton, who spent the 1969 season with the expansion Seattle Pilots and then the Houston Astros. Entertaining on many levels, "Ball Four" also serves as a mirror of the times -- in the late 1960s, many established concepts and ideas, in politics, music, mass media, and sports, were being shattered. Baseball, always about five years behind the curve, was always thought of as a game that was played by wholesome, All-American men. They were our heroes. Ball Four, however, sheds new light and revealed, for the first time, that baseball players, even some of the game's superstars, are human.
Bouton tells all, in, by today's standards, a tame fashion. We read about everything -- ballplayers cheating on their wives, playing with hangovers, racial problems between teammates, players taking uppers before a game, etc. Bouton is a very insightful writer and presents the material in a humorous manner, the humor, or barbs, is directed at his teammates, managers, coaches, and, in many instances, at himself.
Baseball was outraged when the book first came out in 1970. Many players and baseball executives considered Bouton a turncoat. But the years have shown that Ball Four was a groundbreaking book, one that set the standard for tell-all books to come. These other books, however, have never reached the level of excellence of Bouton's "Ball Four."
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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:
the first to expose how players used the groupies, April 5, 2008
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 was racy, groundbreaking and controversial in its time much like Canseco's books are today.
You will also see that it led to several other books by Jim Bouton and even one by his ex wife (another analogy to Canseco whose ex wife also wrote a book). Bouton was a great pitcher but alas for only the period from 1961-1964. 1963 was his best season but even though he pitched well in that world series the Yankees got steamrolled by the Dodger staff with Drysdale and Koufax leading the way. After retirementhe came back to pitch for the Seattle Pilots expansion team in their first year. He had developed a knuckle ball and that allowed him some limited success. Bulldog Jim wrote a book about that experience too. He had a trick when he pitched for the Yankees. He wouldd deliberately wear a very loose fitting cap that would usually fall off his head as he delivered the pitch. This was distracting for the hitters. But in his day Bouton had a good fastball and a deceptive changeup and he was part of a great pitching rotation in 1963 that included Ford, Downing and Terry.
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28 of 30 people found the following review helpful:
The Greatest Baseball Book Ever Written, August 17, 1999
As far as I'm concerned, Ball Four is easily the best baseball book out there. I've read about 45 baseball books and nothing compares to Bouton's masterpiece. I've read this book four times and it still hasn't gotten old yet. I'm sure I'll read it at least ten more times and I doubt that I will ever get tired of it. What makes Ball Four better than any other baseball book is that it allows its readers to see the game from a player's perspective. Never has a book given such an up-close, in-the-locker-room look at baseball. Of course, Bouton himself is brilliant. I love his sarcasm and his biting wit. Ball Four might have been a pretty good book even if it had been written by a poor writer; Bouton, though, is an excellent storyteller and his attitude is what shapes the book. If you consider yourself a fan of the game, you will buy Ball Four immediately. It has given me great joy time and time again.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Six Stars !!, October 28, 2000
Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" is, without a doubt, the best book ever written by a professional athlete and is arguably the greatest baseball book of all-time. Dozens of kiss-n-tell sports novels have dotted the bestseller lists since "Ball Four's" publication in 1970, but none are as funny or revealing as Bouton's expose. All however, owe their very existence to "Ball Four" which shook the moral foundation of our national pastime upon its release. Bouton forever stripped away the All-American image of the professional sports hero with his humorous -- and sometimes X-rated -- locker room tales. Many, including then Commisioner Bowie Kuhn, felt that Bouton had forever tarnished baseball's image with his less than flattering portrayals of some of the game's biggest stars.(Namely Bouton's former Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle). Jim Bouton, in 1970, was Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of the baseball establishment. Truth be told, Bouton merely humanized the professional athlete. Many players--especially Bouton himself --are portrayed as being uncertain of their abilities and fearful of losing their jobs in the highly competitive world of major league baseball.(Such insecurity is best exemplified when Bouton is traded in mid-season from Seattle to Houston and lives to tell us about it!) Overall, "Ball Four" is one heckuva book. Bouton's sense of humor is absolutely side-splitting and his sensitivity, at times, is downright moving. This is a fantastic, groundbreaking novel which no sports fan should be without. Six Stars!!
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15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
Baseball classic, April 23, 2001
When "Ball Four" was published in 1970, Jim Bouton was attacked by players, sportswriters, and the owners for revealing the secret, sordid underbelly of professional baseball. Which should be enough right there to get you to read this thing. But in "Ball Four," Bouton also reveals the humanity of baseball, the fear, the hate, and the fun, which makes it one of the classics of baseball literature and a must read.Basically, "Ball Four" is a diary of the 1968 season written by a journeyman middle-relief knuckleballer. Before injuring his arm, and turning to the knuckleball, Bouton was a fireball pitcher for the New York Yankees. In his rookie season in 1962, Bouton won two games for the Yanks in the World Series. He played with Mantle and Ford. Then his arm went dead, and he found himself back in the minors, where he taught himself to throw the knuckler. The Yanks didn't think much of him anymore and traded him to the expansion Seattle Pilots (which left Seattle after a single year for...get this...Milwaukee), where he earned a spot as a spot starter and mopup long relief man. The book reveals the personalities of the players and managers and owners. It tells what the players do on the road, in the bullpen, in the minors. It reveals the petty nature of the coaching staff, who are usually all old-time baseball men, not very clever, not prone to trying new ways. It talks about the dicey contract negotiations by players in the days of the reserve clause, when average players made an average wage. Bouton travels in the world of boys. The players are mostly kids in their 20s, not educated, and spent their formative years in baseball. They like pranks. They like women, but they don't know either how to talk about them, or how to talk with them. Most of the time, they just try to look up their skirts. They drink. They sneak in past curfew. But Bouton also works in a competitive business market. Pitchers hide their arm injuries for fear of being sent down. Players fume over bench time. Coaches think small, because to be creative and new means being out of a job. And baseball is all these guys have. They have nothing else to turn to. Certainly in light of recent ballplayer behavior - think of the Pittsburgh cocaine scandals, Strawberry and Gooden, and the thuggish, drug-addled violence associated with football and basketball - "Ball Four" depicts a harmless and almost nostalgic view of baseball. But it still stands as a baseball classic for its honesty, its authenticity, and you wonder how much has changed since 1968. In the end, the players, owners, and writers should have celebrated the publication of "Ball Four." Sure, it did spawn a string of subsequent tell-alls, and it did forever swing aside the curtain shielding the ballplayer from public scrutiny, but this is a modern age, and we want heroes with all their flaws. Who is it more fun to root for on the field, a straw dummy propped up by a marketing machine, or a man?
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Funny, Socially Conscious, Irreverent, January 31, 2001
Bouton wrote a revealing, funny, and socially conscious diary from his days with the expansion 1969 Seattle Pilots (today's Milwaukee Brewers). The author exposes ballplayers as fallibly human rather than as the falsely promoted role models, and discusses such once concealed issues as salary fights, pep pills and groupies. Bouton also confesses his own insecurities as a washed up pitcher hanging on via the knuckleball. This book dates from the era before free agency, when established players had to fight to get paid incredibly modest salaries. "Ball Four" also reminds us that long hair, civil rights, and Vietnam were controversial in 1969. Unfortunately, Bouton's "kiss-n-tell" insensitivity towards certain teammates (some of whom disliked him) detracts a bit from his writing. This book annoyed the baseball establishment when published in 1970. Bouton (and editor Leonard Schecter) exceeded "The Long Season," a mildly irreverent 1959 diary by pitcher Jim Brosnan that also upset the baseball lords. "Ball Four: The Final Pitch," contains successive ten-year updates that each add a nice perspective. The last update also contains very emotional reading concerning a tragic death in Bouton's family. This is a very funny and thought-provoking read.
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Not Just for Baseball Annies, October 26, 2000
I first read this book when I was about fifteen or so - way back in the 70's. That tattered paperback copy is one of the few books from my teenage years that I still own, having hauled it and a few other beloved reads in moves from Pennsylvania to Arizona to Colorado. I loved the book then and reread it every couple of years. Bouton's sense of humor pervades the book, and still keeps me laughing. Aside from a fascinating insight into the sport of baseball, it was also a terrific insight into the male mind. The day -to -day accounts of the activities of the exclusively male environment of a sports team was quite engrossing to a girl living with a single mother and two sisters. (Someday, somehow, I am going to play that baby powder/hair dryer prank on someone!) The book also offers a look into America's past that even in the mid-70's was no more. I can recall my shock and disbelief at Bouton's description of the restaurants in the South that would not serve the black ball players inside - forcing those players to take their food outside to eat on the team bus. Nothing like that existed in my Pennsylvania town; it was hard for me to believe such things occurred in my own lifetime. (And to this day, I am indignant that the ball clubs would patronize such restaurants, and the fellow players would accept this situation.) I heard of the book from Mad Magazine, and read it in order to understand the joke in the magazine --something about you know you are Republican if you think Jim Bouton is a traitor -- (and yes, I was the kind of kid who would read a book in order to udnerstand a joke!). I had not been a baseball fan before reading Ball Four, but I've been a fan ever since. (And a lifelong democrat <g>)
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
Why a 41-year-old God-fearing female loves ball four, September 17, 1996
By A Customer
When my house cleaner threw my coverless, dogeared copy of Ball Four in the trash, I promptly fished it out. It's anyone's guess why a 41-year-old God-fearing female and lifelong Yankee fan would rank that book as a must-save, but I do. The book that "tore the cover off the biggest names in baseball" didn't make me think any less of my heroesÐit simply made all of them-Mantle, Maris, Tresh, et. al.-a little more human. Beyond that, it's a very funny book. The quality of "earthiness ... and non-sequitor" that Jim Bouton claims he's trying to capture is all there.
The older I get, the more I read Ball Four not only as a book about baseball, but as a book about our times similar to (would'd have thought it) Samuel Pepys diary. Bouton freely discusses race, religion, and sex, but not to the point that the reader gets bored with any of them.
Beyond everything else, it is a picture of Jim Bouton. It's all there, his insecurities, his faults, his self-serving attitude as well as his honesty, intelligence, and humor. I've heard very little about Bouton since 1970 when my brother and I read Ball Four and thought it necessary to keep it from our parents. But I feel as though I know Jim. And I feel nothing but kindness toward him.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
Ball Four: Required Reading for Ball Fans, May 28, 2005
Bouton's diary-style take on professional baseball in the late 1960s makes for a very funny book that ought to be required reading for any sports fan.
Bouton spent a large part of his career pitching his knuckleball for a variety of big-league teams, including for the Yankees in the 1964 World Series. In Ball Four, Bouton goes from the minors to the Seattle Pilots, then to Houston, over the course of the 1969 season. The book really captures a bygone era of baseball. Salaries were low, bus rides were long, and a lot of big names were still in the game.
The book has a reputation for being funny, and it is. Bouton has a wry sense of humor and a keen eye for human foibles.
A few subjects felt burned, but in this day of athletes accused of drug abuse and criminal behavior, some of the antics that Bouton writes about seem very tame, almost quaint. It's a little hard to see what the fuss was about if you're planted firmly in 2005.
Bouton's observations are fascinating, capturing an era in baseball (and more broadly, in our nation) that has all but disappeared. These were the days before million-dollar contracts and when the length of their hair and sideburns sometimes held the key to a player's future.
Bouton brings the moments alive, so the reader can feel the nerves of a pitcher blowing a game, the joy of running across a big-league field, the frustration of trying to get Gatorade, the speechlessness of finding one's shoes nailed to the clubhouse floor.
Readers should be grateful that someone with a clear, ironic eye had the foresight to take notes and write this book. As Bouton himself says, so many of the funny details would have been lost forever.
For baseball fans, young and old, put this at the top of your summer reading list.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
More Than Just a Baseball Book, February 18, 2002
Unlike most sports-themed book, written by the athletes who seem to always be willing to glad-hand themselves, this terrific account into the year in the life of a ballplayer is irreverent and uncompromising. As a former ballplayer, Jim Bouton played hard but always lived by a higher code. Never willing to place himself in a compromising situation, he nonetheless becomes a somewhat outspoken critic of what baseball had become (remember, this book was written during the 1969 season, well before free-agency and the Enron-esque manner by which MLB seems to handle itself as an organization these days). Yes, he does seem harsh on some teammates, past and present, and doesn't fail to criticize himself on many occasions either. But he ultimately reveals himself to be a fan of the game, warts and all. It's easy to understand why this book generated so much controversy. It still manages to convey an important message that athletes and their sport are, at the end of the day, completely fallible. Despite the somewhat shallow character baseball players and managers reveal throughout "Ball Four", you still get the sense from Bouton that you wouldn't trade the experience for anything in the world. And, more than anything, it destroys the myth that the game was so much better back in the "good old days."
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