What is the greatest sports book of all time?
Many sports fans have their own opinion. It all depends on your favorite player or subject.
A lot of great coaches and players have written or at least co-written their own biographies.
A lot of sports writers have chronicled their experiences making deadline for their teams or athletes they covered over the years.
But in this writer’s opinion, there is one sports book that towers above them all.
This year, 2009, is the 40th anniversary of the writing of the book “Ball Four” by Jim Bouton.
Who is Jim Bouton, one might ask?
He was just a major league pitcher who played for the New York Yankees in the early 1960’s. He was a fastballer who played for the Yankees World Series team of 1962 and American League Championship teams of 1963 and 1964.
After the 1964 season, Bouton, like many fastballers, blew out his arm and had to make a comeback as a junk baller: somebody who threw off speed pitches.
Jim Bouton a Knuckleball Pitcher
Bouton was regulated to bullpen duties with the Yankees in 1965, which fell to last place in the American League, he decided to experiment with the knuckleball.
In today’s game, only Tim Wakefield of the Boston Red Sox throws the pitch.
But back in the late 1960s and early 70s, there were plenty of them around.
Bouton’s comeback started when Major League Baseball expanded in 1969 when four teams were added.
They were the Montreal Expos (currently the Washington Nationals) and San Diego Padres in the National League, and the Kansas City Royals and Seattle Pilots (currently the Milwaukee Brewers) of the American League.
Jim Bouton with Seattle Pilots
The only historical footnote that the Seattle Pilots ever existed came from Bouton’s book. The team moved to Milwaukee in 1970 because they played in a dilapidated minor league stadium with no working showers and substandard fan capacity and clubhouses.
Bouton was approached to write the book by sports writer Leonard Shecter while attending the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
Bouton wrote the book in diary form about each day he spent with the Pilots from spring training on the way to when he was traded to the Houston Astros late in the season.
It was a no-holds-barred summary of locker room chatter that was until then, considered off limits to public consumption.
Bouton was the first to expose the drinking problem of New York Yankees superstar Mickey Mantle and some other players.
He talked about baseball groupies, or girls that would hang around the ballplayers on the road; girls he called “Baseball Annies.”
Bouton was also the first player to expose drug use in the game, which at that time was speed or “greenies.”
He also shed light on the early formation of the Baseball Players Union and its leader, Marvin Miller.
Jim Bouton Resented by Players
When the book was published the next year, Bouton lost a lot of friends in the game.
Cincinnati Reds player Pete Rose, the all-time hits leader, was once heard to say “F*** You Shakespeare” to Bouton.
But Bouton set a precedent since Rose and other pro athletes have gone on to write their own tell-all books.
