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"Ball Four" Author Jim Bouton Dead at 80


IUFLA

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The sports book that shocked the baseball world.

Funny and irreverent...the baseball establishment hated Bouton for the book...Bowie Kuhn asked him to come out publicly and say it was all made up...Which Bouton wouldn't do...

Bouton wrote a lot about Mickey Mantle in the book, both good and bad. The Yankees banned him from Old Timers games for it. Mantle called Bouton after one of Mantle's sons had passed away and told him that he never held a grudge over the book, and he wasn't the reason Bouton was persona non grata from Old Timers games.

A great read if you like baseball...and remember, it was written in 1969...

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8 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

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The sports book that shocked the baseball world.

Funny and irreverent...the baseball establishment hated Bouton for the book...Bowie Kuhn asked him to come out publicly and say it was all made up...Which Bouton wouldn't do...

Bouton wrote a lot about Mickey Mantle in the book, both good and bad. The Yankees banned him from Old Timers games for it. Mantle called Bouton after one of Mantle's sons had passed away and told him that he never held a grudge over the book, and he wasn't the reason Bouton was persona non grata from Old Timers games.

A great read if you like baseball...and remember, it was written in 1969...

Funny, I have never read the book.  Have heard lots about it.

RIP Jim

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One of my favorite stories from the book...

"Whitey Disken, the clubhouse man who prepares all that great food every night, an elderly stooped-over gentleman with glasses who looks something like Henry the Chicken Hawk, had this great big pot of Chicken Ala King. It was fine Chicken Ala King. It was great Chicken Ala King. But we hadn't been having Chicken Ala King, so the guys got on it.

'Jesus Christ, Whitey, what the hell is this stuff?'

'What have you done here, Whitey?'

And each guy comes over, takes a taste, and spits it into the garbage. Well, not everybody. Me, I had two big plates of it.

'Look at that stuff, Whitey, this is fifth place food.'

'Christ, here we are fighting for a pennant and you serve us this s#$t.'

After a while, nobody could think of anything more to say, so Wade Blasingame looked at Whitey with contempt and said, 'And that's a horses#&t shirt you're wearing too, Whitey.'"

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29 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

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The sports book that shocked the baseball world.

Funny and irreverent...the baseball establishment hated Bouton for the book...Bowie Kuhn asked him to come out publicly and say it was all made up...Which Bouton wouldn't do...

Bouton wrote a lot about Mickey Mantle in the book, both good and bad. The Yankees banned him from Old Timers games for it. Mantle called Bouton after one of Mantle's sons had passed away and told him that he never held a grudge over the book, and he wasn't the reason Bouton was persona non grata from Old Timers games.

A great read if you like baseball...and remember, it was written in 1969...

Never read it. But know of the story. Was curious. Baseball was so legendary during that time...was it a shock to the system, first of it's kind of book? Today we are inundated with journalists trying to expose things. Can't imagine a commissioner trying to discredit a journalist in today's world.

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3 minutes ago, Seeking6 said:

Never read it. But know of the story. Was curious. Baseball was so legendary during that time...was it a shock to the system, first of it's kind of book? Today we are inundated with journalists trying to expose things. Can't imagine a commissioner trying to discredit a journalist in today's world.

A lot of people, including players thought of it as "kiss and tell." 

Back in those days, we put athletes up on a pedestal, and sportswriters protected them by keeping the more salacious stories out of the paper. Choir boys, one and all.

Bouton threw the covers off all of that. You could argue that his book was the doorway to much of the sports journalism we see today.

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