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Foul Ball

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Jim Bouton's pitching days are past, but his love for baseball will never end. _Foul Ball_ tells the story of his efforts, in concert with a good friend, to save a historic minor league baseball park.

Anyone who has ever read Bouton knows of his style: entertaining, self-deprecatory, perceptive and candid. This greatly broadens the appeal of what would otherwise be a book of fairly narrow interest. By the time I finished it, I was willing to collect signatures for a petition to save the place, so fully was I drawn into the story. If I ever pass through Massachusetts, I simply have to see Wahconah Park.

But what makes the story so relevant to many far from Massachusetts is its description of the constant conflict between small-town America's city governments and people. Bouton's story rings very true with me because I live in a town of similar size to Pittsfield (40-50,000), and I see locally the behaviours he has chronicled: an arrogant city government more concerned with building itself Taj Mahals and handing out fat contracts than doing the will of the people. A newspaper that works hand in glove with the city functionaries to further its own selfish interests. Legal harassment of those who dare dissent openly, and city employees acknowledging that the system is horribly corrupt but terrified to say so. And overshadowing it all, the pandering of city government to corporate greed and pressure--in the case of Pittsfield, GE and its apparent history of gross PCB spillage.

Fighting City Hall is not easy, and few do so, but Jim Bouton and Chip Elitzer had the guts to do it, for the love of baseball and history. When the original publisher mysteriously reneged on its agreement to put this book into print--gee, I wonder why--Bouton self-published it. It was well worth my money. Recommended for baseball fans, as well as anyone who has ever seen a city government wield power 'just because it can.'

Less than five years after I left my decades-long business and comfortable residence in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, tired of the infighting and incompetence that made a disaster of the city's economy and a mockery of its government, Jim Bouton's masterful book Foul Ball came to my attention. The book dwells on Jim's efforts to revitalize Wahconah Park, where my young daughter saw her first baseball games and where I took my elderly father to teach us both the subtleties of the game on lazy summer evenings.

In those days, $4 got you a seat in the grandstand and a few more bucks bought you a hotdog and peanuts. It wasn't fancy but it was baseball as my grandparents knew the game.

I was mesmerized by Bouton's book. Jim was talking about all my old colleagues, all my old grievances against the stodgy, secretive, illegal, classically antedeluvian gang that ran Pittsfield like a sniggering boys' club. I stayed up late reading the book in astonishment. What Bouton described in one sneaky maneuver after another constitutes a sad commentary on the priorities of a small city that used to be the county seat of a fine tourist area (Berkshire County, Massachusetts), but has lost industry, clean land, population, young people, and nearly all hope in decade after decade of counterproductive back-room deals that almost never benefit the misled, manipulated population of the city. Every other town in the county (and the one other small city) is now more desirable than Pittsfield . . . and Jim Bouton nails down the reasons in spades.

A fascinating read, and as someone who lived and worked there with the local establishment, I can say that it is a sad but all too true commentary on a community at war with itself. All Jim wanted was a viable minor league baseball team playing in a rejuvenated Wahconah Park. He had the financing, the skills, and the baseball background to make this happen. Unfortunately, all Jim got was grief and deceit. READ THIS BOOK; you won't be able to put it down.

Postscript (late October 2003): the bush-league competitor with connections who got the contract that Jim and his partners were seeking has walked away from Wahconah Park two years and two lousy seasons later, and the current mayor (up for reelection) has asked Jim to reconsider his original plan. (There is currently no baseball team signed to play in 2004--and no-one with authority to sign one--and the county will suffer financially as a result.) Once you read Foul Ball, you'll understand why Jim said no thanks to a second go-round.

The citizens of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, didn't want a new minor-league baseball stadium. However, the city council, parks commission, bank, top law firm, and newspaper, all wanted a new minor-league baseball stadium. Guess who won?

Jim Bouton's "Foul Ball" is his second diary. The first, of course, is "Ball Four", the seminal account not just of the short-lived 1969 Seattle Pilots (another victim of local politics and back-room deals) but of baseball on the brink of free agency. That book turned Bouton into something of a pariah; he went from ballplayer to broadcaster within months of its release.

"Foul Ball" charts four months in 2001, as Bouton and business partner Chip Elitzer seek community and political support to renovate Pittsfield's existing stadium and attract a new minor-league franchise (after the Pittsfield Astros left town in favor of... a new stadium, out of state). Just by the fact that this book was self-published, you can guess the outcome. Bouton tracks the unfolding story town meeting by town meeting, threatening phone call by threatening phone call. As with the "Ball Four" format, the action is liberally interspersed with anecdotes and updates from old friends. Indeed, if "Ball Four" hadn't already been followed by "Ball Five", "Ball Six", and "The Final Pitch", this book could've been "Ball Seven". Or "Juuuust A Bit Outside!".

To be honest, I really felt sorry for Bouton by the end. Now in his 60s and living in the Berkshires, running his modest motivational speaking enterprise, Bouton in "Foul Ball" suffers setback after setback. Apart from being pillaged daily by the local newspaper, he had to pull his book from its publisher and go the self-publishing route. ESPN's SportsCentury feature on "Ball Four" is yanked from the schedule days before airtime. The Seattle Mariners politely refuse to hold a Seattle Pilots reunion. I kept waiting for the city of Pittsfield to trade Bouton for Dooley Womack! Bouton's September 11th experiences are in the book, too. I read that entry while riding New York City's "E" subway. Which used to go to the World Trade Center.

"Foul Ball" contains lots of blood-curdling tales of local corruption and toxic waste dumping. You may not support Bouton's near-Quixotic quest against the-powers-that-be, but this book certainly deserves to be read and heard. Then check out the website for the Berkshire Black Bears to see how Pittsfield's new team is faring under someone else's ownership.

This is a book that answers the question so many people ask about so many aspects of American life, and not just baseball: "Why are things so bad, and why aren't they fixed?"

The city leaders of Pittsfield, Mass. were trying to jam a trendoid, taxpayer-funded new stadium down the throats of the people they were supposed to represent. Bouton and associates, in the nearly dead tradition of American capitalism, offered to take the financial risks instead. Bouton et al.'s plan: save the old ballpark and use Pittsfield's assets to put the city in the driver's seat, instead of letting the city get jerked around and fleeced like nearly every other city in the country with a professional sports team. And the people of Pittsfield would get to own 51% of the team: a veritable Green Bay Packers of minor league baseball!

You'd think any city would jump at that offer, but it takes a free press and a democratic form of government to ensure that kind of common-sense decision. And therein lies the compelling story in "Foul Ball." The book, a diary of Bouton's efforts, reads like a Michael Moore movie script. And even though you know Bouton's going to lose, just like Michael Moore's not going to get Roger Smith to fess up or Charlton Heston to apologize, it's a fascinating tour through the demosclerotic, upside-down fruitcake of modern America.

Of particular note is Bouton's jousting with the "local" paper, in fact a chain-owned rag that distorts the truth reflexively. By the end of the book, you find out why the paper was pushing so hard for a new stadium on its own property. General Electric and its sliming of the Pittsfield area with PCBs play key roles too.

I've seen my share of battles in small-city America, and Bouton's stories have the complete ring of truth--the shifting strategies of deception, the comical mockery of democratic process, the works. It's at the Parks Commission level where the American dream lives or dies, and it's refreshing to have Bouton talk about this with such passion. Try getting any journalist interested in doing a 400-page book on Pittsfield and its local government! Not to mention a book with enough detail on GE's hanky-panky that the original publisher wanted Bouton to soft-pedal things. Bouton tossed the publisher and published the book himself. Bravo!

In this sense, "Foul Ball" is an important contribution to American studies, the kind of book a "Washington Monthly" would review and applaud if Charles Peters were still the editor. More than a few journalists and city activists with no interest whatsoever in baseball could read this book with pleasure.

My only criticism of "Foul Ball" is a forgivable one: at the point where Bouton's diary admits he and his partner are going over the top to gain approval of their proposal, the diary starts to drag. As a reader, I was ready to "call for the question" instead of reading more about Bouton's increasingly elaborate campaign strategies. But this is a completely honest mistake: Bouton is passionate about his cause and goes on a little too long, just like he probably would in person, just like I would about my favorite cause too. If this were a journalist's account instead of a first-person diary, we'd probably have been spared this--but we'd have lost the best aspect of the book too, Bouton's spot-on honesty.

Buy this book, and learn a lot about what's wrong with baseball, journalism, and local government in today's America. And keep tabs via the Web of the crummy team with the three-digit attendance that Bouton's rival has foisted onto Pittsfield. Why are they so bad? Not because no one tried to fix things, but because things were 'fixed.' Read the book, and you'll know exactly how and why the fix was in.

Jim Bouton is all grown-up. He's living happily in Massachusetts despite, like many other grown-ups, getting over a deep loss. He still loves baseball and often goes to minor league games in Pittsfield. The park is run-down but he sees it's potential as an historical landmark. Ah, but the local newspaper and politicians want a new stadium. Thus begins a conflict that mirrors the American problem of whether or not our republic is 'of the people' or of the people with money and power.

Bouton's mockingbird flies freely throughout the narrative. He lets his pal, Chip, be smart and be a hero. It's as if Chip was a catcher calling a good game. There are even Gary Bell updates.

Foul Ball is beyond a great read. As much fun as it is to hear his 'voice' again, it is more important that stories like this be heard. Read this for fun but afterwards, keep an eye out for bulldozers.

Jim Bouton's "Foul Ball" is a fascinating book about his trying to save Waconah Park, an 1890s ballpark in my old home town of Pittsfield, Mass. But it is relevant to cities throughout America and to journalists throughout America. For cities, the book is a well-documented report - often hilarious -- of political and financial wheeling-dealing, back-room decision-making, possible toxic waste cover-ups and con artistry by the good-old-boys in power. For journalists, the book is a shocking account of how a once-highly respected local newspaper has become a joke at best, a shameless tool of moneyed interests at worst. Just about every city in America has been hustled by gold-digging promoters to invest tax money in sports stadiums. Backed by a chorus of "fans", politicians see stadiums as miraculous saviors of local sports, of jobs, the economy, of neighborhoods, downtowns, the entire city, state and nation, and heck, peace would come to the Middle East and Northern Ireland if only they built stadiums there. As I write this, the Boston City Councilors and other city VIPs get rare, choice tickets (oh, they pay face value, of course) to the Red Sox-Yankee playoffs. Oh, no, these ducats from Sox management won't influence decisions on Fenway Park. Jim Bouton's attempt to save an old ball park is on a much smaller scale than Fenway, but it's all the same: politicians on the make, fat-cats wanting to get fatter, and big companies demanding a piece of the action. (In Pittfield it's General Electric Co. pulling the strings.) Bouton lives in Berkshire County, of which Pittsfield is the largest city. Multi-millionaire Larry Bossidy arrives back in his home town with a scheme for a new ball park. But like just about every wealthy sports "fan", he wants the tax-payers to pay for it. The local newspaper, the Berkshire Eagle, now owned by a Denver-based chain, happens to own a piece of land "perfect" for the stadium. The newspaper does not objectively report the fight to save the ballpark , but becomes a clear participant - first favoring a new stadium, then backing a New York outfit (well-connected to the Mayor and his cronies) against Jim Bouton's team, which doesn't want one nickel in tax-payer money. Naturally, the New Yorker gets a two-year contract for the old ball park. And surprise, surprise, now that the two years are up, the New Yorkers - who pledged to stay for the long haul -- are saying Pittsfield is a lousy market, they can't make money, it's nice to have known you, bye-bye Pittsfield. Jim Bouton's book is wonderfully-written, it keeps you laughing, and is obviously accurate. His original publisher demanded parts critical of General Electric be edited out. (Bossidy was number two man to Jack Welch before moving to head Allied Signal.) Bouton refused and published the book himself. He hasn't been sued for libel, not yet anyway, so one can assume his reporting is accurate. The book will inspire citizens throughout the USA to fight greedy sports tycoons who love nothing better than dipping into the public trough. And it should be read by all aspiring (and working) journalists. It's depressing as far as the Eagle goes, but, with luck, it will inspire reporters to be reporters and not tools and toadies.

As a resident of Seattle, it's easy to get caught up in a story about politicians desperate to build a new stadium, despite the voters' clearly-stated opposition to the idea -- especially when the guy telling the story used to play for our hard-luck Pilots. But it quickly becomes clear that this story is about a lot more than just a ballpark ... about more, even, than just baseball. If Jim Bouton's first book, "Ball Four" (which I admit to not having read yet, though it's way up on my to-read list now), was a masterpiece of baseball literature, "Foul Ball" is not only a masterpiece of muckraking journalism, it's also simply an engrossing story, very well told.

In attempting to save historic Wahconah Park, and professional baseball, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, Bouton and his partners run up against a closed power structure that controls politics, finance, and the town's one daily paper. Over time, the people of Pittsfield rally behind his cause in overwhelming numbers ... or rather, in numbers that would be overwhelming anyplace but Pittsfield. There, the political-financial-media rulers ignore the public, cut their backroom deals, manipulate or intimidate opponents, and steamroll ahead to achieve the outcome they had settled on long ago. It's about money, and accountability, and power -- but mostly, I think, about money. "Everybody's just going to have to live with it."

Bouton tells his story with surprising good humor, considering how infuriating the whole thing is. He is insightful and bold, with a sharp eye for detail and a talent for description. And he literally puts his money where his mouth is, choosing to publish this title himself rather than make the bowdlerizing edits demanded by his initial publishers. I strongly encourage you to reward his risk-taking (and get yourself a darn fine book in the process) by buying one or two copies of "Foul Ball" yourself.

Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" was one of the great sports books ever written, a probing search of the fascinating community of major league baseball and the people who inhabit it. Bouton's fascinating candor resulted in ringing plaudits. In "Foul Ball" that probing candor is back. There is one basic difference between this book and "Ball Four": in the former case Bouton was writing about an environment he understood; in the latter case he undertook a notable public service endeavor without being remotely aware of the confluence of forces who would coalesce against him.

Jim Bouton nobly sought to preserve and restore the historic minor league baseball park in his native Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on which diamond greats such as Lou Gehrig and Jim Thorpe had once played. He sought to achieve this result by selling stock in the team to Pittsfield's citizens, an endeavor involving personal civic pride without any public funds being sought.

Bouton soon realized he had encountered a four-tiered influential opposition combining:

1) the town's only newspaper;

2) the town's leading bank;

3) the town's leading law firm;

4) the formidable General Electric corporation.

The coalescing forces opposed the park renovation and supported the building of a new stadium. Bouton argued that community pride would be better served by restoring the old historic park. If the formidable economic group wanted to build something for the community, he suggested a concert hall as a possibility.

The plot thickened when Bouton learned that the corporate machine wanted to build the new stadium to cover up the toxic waste site that existed within it. He also learned that the newspaper he thought of as belonging to the community was part of a conglomerate based in Denver. When he sought to contact the CEO based in Denver he never received the courtesy of a response.

This excellent book is highly reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart bucking the tide in the small Pennsylvania town he was seeking to remove from the greedy economic grasp of Lionel Barrymore in Frank Capra's film "It's a Wonderful Life." Bouton's story is a microcosm of what we see all around us in present society, the commodifying of conglomerate corporate America at the expense of the best interests of communities. It is imperative to stop this pernicious trend before it consumes the native ingenuity of practical Americans who seek to develop their communities as individualists, preserving the best of the old while forging new ground without being trampled by cumulative economic might.

Outside the cloistered world of the dugout, Jim Bouton has fallen through the Looking Glass into an even more insular world...politics. Wonderland has nothing on Pittsfield, MA, home of crooked politicians, PCP-spewing GE factories and a local newspaper that could have been owned by Charles Foster Kane.

Bouton's funny...and at times sad...first person account of his efforts to save Waconah Park, the oldest active professional baseball field in the country, show a world of politics gone awry. Set in Western Massachusett's Berkshire area, Pittsfield has its own Boss Tweed as the mayor serves the people by pushing exactly what they don't want.

Bouton takes great pains to provide an insightful journal of his efforts to save the ballpark, while battling the over-reaching efforts of the local establishment to build a new ballpark, despite having it voted down three times in various elections.

I highly recommend reading this book.

I couldn't put this one down and read the entire book on one long day of traveling cross country. The book is about a lot of things. Love for the game of baseball, if not the business of baseball. What kind of crooked nonsense goes on in thousands of small towns across the US every day with bogus politicians defying the will of the people they are supposedly there to serve. How companies that screw all of us somehow convince people and politicians that they are looking out for our best interests. But most of all, this book is about the absolute need all American citizens have for a free press, and a free press that is intelligent, well-informed, willing to take risks, and willing to do its damm job. When the press rolls over, there really is no hope of outing the kinds of crooks and morons Bouton smokes out. It's a very compelling read and I comend Bouton for writing it (even if his originally publisher wimped out).