Rating: 
Summary: Inspiration for taxpayers, reporters and true fans
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Now I know why I left
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Bucking the Corporate Tide
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: still throwing the dancing literary knuckleball
Review: 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.'
Rating:
Summary: How True It Is
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Saving a Ballpark
Review: More than 30 year ago in the highly acclaimed "Ball Four" Jim Bouton took us inside Major League Baseball and was banned from the sport for years for saying it as he saw it. Now, in 2003 he takes us inside again...this time the politicians of Pittsfield, Mass and his desire to purchase an old ballpark (Wahconah Park) and make it a truly public team...of the people, by the people and for the people...but the politicians thought otherwise. It's a fabulous read an a true commentary on politics and sports.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating reading, but with an even larger message
Review: Mr. Bouton is simply an excellent writer, and this book is, well, simply excellent. There are tales here of intrigue, humor, as well as interesting allusions to baseball past and present, but in essence, Jim Bouton is speaking of a larger problem: The question of citizen involvement in a democracy: Who's running the show in America today? It's not the people. From decisions to wage war to decisions to build a little baseball stadium, citizens' thoughts and wishes are routinely distorted or ignored completely, with help from an uncritical corporate-owned media. Great book, Mr. Bouton, thanks.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating reading, but with an even larger message
Review: Mr. Bouton is simply an excellent writer, and this book is, well, simply excellent. There are tales here of intrigue, humor, as well as interesting allusions to baseball past and present, but in essence, Jim Bouton is speaking of a larger problem: The question of citizen involvement in a democracy: Who's running the show in America today? It's not the people. From decisions to wage war to decisions to build a little baseball stadium, citizens' thoughts and wishes are routinely distorted or ignored completely, with help from an uncritical corporate-owned media. Great book, Mr. Bouton, thanks.
Rating:
Summary: Foul Ball Is A Hit
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Pittsfield gets thrown the knuckleball
Review: 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.
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