Rating: 
Summary: One of the best baseball books of all time
Review: This is one of the greatest baseball books ever written--a funny, irreverent, truthful account of a veteran pitcher's attempt to come back from injury as a knuckleballer with the short-lived expansion Seattle Pilots. Bouton tells his story with remarkable humor and insight, and in its day the book was a real shocker. (Mickey Mantle drinks and chases girls!!??! No way!) Real baseball fans will want to reflect on the rest of the story, which unfolded further only this year: how Bouton, after the tragic death of his daughter Laurie in an auto accident last year, was finally invited back to Old-Timer's Day at Yankee Stadium. Welcome back, Jim and Ball Four. We missed you both!
Rating:
Summary: This Book Is Why I Love Baseball
Review: I discovered this book when I was 13 and must have read it fifty times. It revealed baseball players to be more than tarted-up faux heros but human beings. Bouton's approach to the story was to capture the humor and the pain of an actual season. I really believe this book would not have been complete without his stint in the minors. It just all came together. Now when I watch a game, I watch more than just the stars. I watch the bench-riders, the coaches, the fans, and all the other HUMANS that play the game.
Rating:
Summary: Hilariously eye-opening look at baseball in 60's and 70's
Review: When I first read ball four I would have to put down the book every few pages because I was laughing so hard. I have read it four times now (during spring training) to get me ready for the upcoming season. Its a classic book that not only explains a season in the life of an knuckleball pitcher with a blownout arm but it developes interesting characters that you get to know and love (ex. Hovley, Goosen, Minchner, O'Brien, Schultz) I urge you to read this book, even if you're not a baseball fan, it is great.
Rating:
Summary: Need a 90's Version
Review: It's a diary about playing baseball in 1980 for an expansion team (the Seattle Pilots) and a contending team (Houston Astros). It has such character and depth that I'd love to see someone do a similar diary today. Nah, it'd probably just be players talking about their investments. . .
Rating:
Summary: It doesn't get much better than this
Review: This book is still selling almost thirty years after it was originally published. That ought to tell you something. I first read it in 1975 as a rebellious teenager. I found, and continue to find, Bouton's independent streak and courage to be admirable. He refused to play along with the Neanderthals; he mouthed off to bosses; he loved the game and wanted to win and play well. The type of person who could hold the above against him is the sort that is currently being parodied in _Dilbert_ books. One thing about this book is that it is hilariously funny. His account of his time with the old Portland Mavericks is as funny as his accounts of bullpen and locker-room humour. His style is highly readable and never boring. And goddess, how he loves the game of baseball. And if you do, as well, and haven't read this book, you have a real treat ahead of you.
Rating:
Summary: You Will Read This Book More Than Once
Review: This is not a 'sports book'. It is a people book. It is about struggling pitchers trying to make a living back before million dollar salaries. This book never fails to make me laugh, no matter how many times I read it.
Rating:
Summary: The Original and still the BEST "inside baseball" book.
Review: I have probably read this book cover to cover 20 times, and leafed through it to read passages another 50 more. Jim Bouton blew the lid off baseball with this truly inside view of baseball's salary negotions, horny players, "annies", etc. His timing was socially relevent as well, as this was written during the infancy of the black power movement, the players union and free angency. No other baseball book has ever approached this one in terms of inside poop on stars, political insight, out and out laughs, and historical perspective. This book has given more references to myself and my friends' lexicons than any other.
Rating:
Summary: Why a 41-year-old God-fearing female loves ball four
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Baseball classic
Review: 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?
Rating:
Summary: Okay, Mr. Bouton
Review: All I can say is that Jim Bouton should keep us updated periodically: about his life, and about what is happening in baseball and culture generally. I say that because this edition, with its new epilogue, is excellent reading.
What shines through is an intelligent, funny, very likeable, and exceedingly sane -- partially by virtue of his craziness -- person. I think we should be hearing and seeing much more of him than we do: just providing a reasonable voice and open, honest critique of current events. Bouton's voice gives hope somehow.
Keep on keeping on, Mr. Bouton!
|
