Indians vs Jim Bouton and the Yankees – June 1963

I haven't been following the Cleveland Indians Guardians too closely this season, except to note that they're under .500 so far. I guess I lost what little interest I had in the team when they changed their name last year. But I'll always have fond memories of going to see them play at Cleveland Municipal Stadium in the late 1960s with my dad and my brothers. 

When I'm doing my blog research at the library, it's fun to read old sports pages to see how the Tribe was doing. And sixty years ago, the Indians were playing the Yankees – with one of my favorite ballplayers pitching for New York: Jim Bouton. His name in the headline above (from the June 1, 1963 Journal) caught my attention.

Unfortunately, Bouton is only briefly mentioned in the story, with no witty quotes or hilarious anecdotes of the kind that ended up in Ball Four. He did end up beating the Indians 5-2, and having a pretty good game with the bat, with 4 RBIs.

Jim Bouton has showed up on this blog before. Back here, I wrote about his second baseball book, which was published in June 1971. And on this post, I wrote about one of his future Seattle Pilots roommates, Gary Bell, when he appeared in Lorain at Jay's Sparkle Market in 1962.

By the way, here's my autographed photo of Jim Bouton. 

Elsewhere on the Journal page is the story of the return of pitcher Early Wynn coming back to the Indians. (He had been traded to Chicago in 1958.) Back with the Tribe, he would get his 300th win on July 13, 1963 – and call it quits at the end of the season.