Did you ever read Ball Four by Jim Bouton?
The baseball diary of the 1969 season by the former New York Yankees pitcher is one of my favorite books. I reread it every couple of years. Although it was controversial at the time (revealing the sometimes racy behind-the-scene antics of Major League ballplayers), the book is quite tame today – but still hilarious.
I had a dogeared copy of the original Ball Four paperback (from Booksellers in Elyria), but over the years Bouton kept updating and reissuing his tome in hardcover, filling in the reader with stories of his latest endeavors and what his old teammates were up to. I eventually bought an autographed copy of the last version, Ball Four – The Final Pitch (2000).
Sadly, Bouton passed away in July 2019.
Anyway, fifty years ago, Bouton’s sequel to Ball Four came out, entitled I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally. He dedicated it to Bowie Kuhn, the Commissioner of Major League Baseball at that time. And that’s the subject of the story below, which appeared in the Journal on June 1, 1971.
I haven’t read I’m Glad You Didn’t Take It Personally since the late 1970s, but will probably order it from the library soon.
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Mike Marshall, the Cy Young Award-winning MLB pitcher and teammate of Jim Bouton during that 1969 season (when both were with the Seattle Pilots) passed away on June 1, 2021. He figured quite prominently in Ball Four as one of Bouton's friends and roommates.
2 comments:
Great book. I also liked his "I Managed Good, But Boy Did They Play Bad," if I recall my tastes of 40+ years ago.
I loved baseball back then. Now I find it unwatchable.
Yes....Baseball is a tainted sport ever since the steroid era of the late "80s up through the early "00s....If I want to watch baseball now I'll put in a good baseball movie like The Natural from 1984 or The Kid From Cleveland from 1949.In this movie,the Cleveland Indians had just come off of winning the 1948 World Series.Most of the players from that championship team were in this movie.Cleveland Municipal Stadium and the old League Park were featured in this movie also.Russ Tamblyn of West Side Story was the star of the movie...This is a classic sports drama of years gone by..I urge anyone who hasn't seen The Kid From Cleveland to grab a bluray of it now before it goes out of print....You will be transported back to a time when sports were drug free and all American wholesome at its best.
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