It's The Knuckler Or Nothing

When reading something like Jim Bouton's Ball Four, I tend to wonder how impactful it would have been if I'd been alive then and reading it? I've read enough discussions of it to gather that his casual mention of players using amphetamines frequently and without proper prescription's was news to many, but what about all talk of players in the dugout trying to look up women's skirts and the fooling around? I mean, I know now Mickey Mantle (for example) was a skirt-chaser, but would fans back then have known that, or that it was fairly common among players?

Ball Four is the story of one season in the life of a veteran pitcher by the name of Jim Bouton. By this point in Bouton's career, he's trying to reinvent himself as a knuckleball pitcher* for the expansion Seattle Pilots franchise. His arm has too much wear and tear for him to rely on the fastballs, sliders, and curves he used to throw so well with the Yankees. Bouton must have had the idea for the book some time prior, because he kept notes on conversations he had and overheard, as well as past events that seemed connected, even before Spring Training. It follows his time with the Pilots, with their minor league team in Vancouver, and his stint with Houston after he was traded mid-season.

His writing style isn't what I'd call polished (Highly repetitive use of "Then there was the time" intros), but it's straightforward, funny, and informative. He's quick to give his opinions, but also quick to admit when he's misjudged someone**. Even when dealing with things that weren't a surprise to me, Bouton writes in a way that makes me interested. He writes about his and teammate Gary Bell's discussions of getting into real-estate and how these tend to come up most often after Bell's had a bad performance. Bell has no idea what he'll do after his playing career, doesn't feel he has any marketable skills, and every poor outing on the baseball diamond makes him more aware of that.

Bouton details how moving around is hard on players and their families, both financially and emotionally, the struggles between players and ownership (as a sports fan, this seemed relevant given the NBA and NFL's current labor concerns), and the clubhouse politics and interrelationships. The idea that the players select their union rep based on his popularity, rather than how aware his of the weaknesses and shortcomings in their current agreement. How if a white player is friends with too many black players, he's going to catch flack from some of the other white players about it. There were two sequences I found especially funny.

- After he's traded to Houston, he describes a song the players have come up with that they sing on the bus. The last verse goes, 'Now Harry Walker is the one that manages this crew, He doesn't like it when we drink and fight and smoke and screw, But when we win our game each day, then what the fuck can Harry say? It makes a fellow proud to be an Astro.' Hell, with a song like that, I was ready to root for the Astros. Then I remembered the current Astros team is terrible. Never mind.

- While he's still in Seattle, Bouton remarks on a trend in the local paper to complain about poor attendance at the park, and how a sportswriter griped that there's always tax money for some cultural event, but never any for sports, which is why the clubhouse showers don't work. It struck me as funny, people complaining that not enough tax money was being used to support a sports team, given all the stadiums in recent years built with tax money (because owners didn't get rich enough to own a sports franchise by spending their own money building their own stadium).

In the next paragraph, Bouton remarks that he feels Seattle is the sort of cosmopolitan city where the people like to go do things, like boating, hiking, attending cultural events (whatever that means. Theater, local art shows?), rather than just sit and watch sports. Reading that, I thought to myself that NBA commish David Stern doubtlessly agreed with this description.

* Which earns him points with me right off. One thing Ken and I disagree about is knuckleball pitchers, because he hates them, and I think they're great. I think it's such a strange pitch, but one that can seemingly be thrown forever without arm difficulties, and nobody knows what it's going to do from one pitch to the next.

** This happens frequently with the coaches in Seattle. Whether Bouton likes them or not depends on whether they'll go along with his desire to throw warm-up pitches as much as he wants, or if they support his plan to be a pure knuckleball pitcher.