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RIP Jim Bouton

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Della9250, Jul 10, 2019.

  1. Jake from State Farm

    Jake from State Farm Well-Known Member

    On the roof of the Shoreham Hotel in DC beaver shooting with Mickey Mantle
    “So this is the big leagues.”
     
    justgladtobehere likes this.
  2. MileHigh

    MileHigh Moderator Staff Member

    So far ahead with Ball Four, which still stands the test of time. RIP.
     
  3. Slacker

    Slacker Well-Known Member

    Jim Pagliaroni joined the club tonight and is going to be a welcome addition. He was describing a girl that one of the ballplayers had been out with and said, “It's hard to say exactly what she looked like. She was kind of Joe Torre with tits.”

    [​IMG]
     
    heyabbott and justgladtobehere like this.
  4. justgladtobehere

    justgladtobehere Well-Known Member

    I read a lot of books that were just collections of mini-biographies or anecdotes about about baseball players. Reading Ball Four just blew me away after all that other crap.
     
    Last edited: Jul 11, 2019
  5. FileNotFound

    FileNotFound Well-Known Member

    Along with Ball Four, another baseball book that shaped my teenage years was Five O’Clock Comes Early by Bob Welch. That book taught me more than just about anything else about respecting alcohol. That book probably couldn’t have happened without Bouton and Ball Four.
     
  6. hondo

    hondo Well-Known Member

    "Fuck him ... fuck him."
     
  7. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    I don't know how anyone could read Ball Four and not think "boy, it'd be great to be in the big leagues."
     
    mpcincal likes this.
  8. swingline

    swingline Well-Known Member

    We really need you out there today, Mick.

    Well, my leg's off at the knee ...
     
  9. CD Boogie

    CD Boogie Well-Known Member

    I don't need a book to tell me that.

    o_O

    As books go, it was a terrific read. I only first read it like 10 years ago. Somehow had fallen through the cracks. Might be a good time to revisit it.
     
  10. cyclingwriter2

    cyclingwriter2 Well-Known Member

    The odd thing people forget is that Ball Four wasn’t the first diary baseball book. The Long Season by Jim Brosnan chronicles a year with the Cardinals. Bill Freehan did one on the 1969 season as well. There were likely others.

    Ball Four was just..different. The stories were sharper. The inside look was deeper. In some ways, I always felt it was a spiritual counterpart to Paper Lion. Plimpton went inside pro football as an outsider and really showed what is was like. Yet, he didn’t talk about the sex lives of the players, but definitely hinted at what they were getting into. bouton, while a legit player, was definitely an outsider ala Plimpton. And he kept the sex stories coming through the entire book.
     
  11. CD Boogie

    CD Boogie Well-Known Member

    I tried to read Paper Lion but the writing was horrendous. I'm sure Plimpton wrote better elsewhere, but that book was poorly written IMHO.
     
    cyclingwriter2 likes this.
  12. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    The Long Season is also an excellent book. If I recall, when Ball Four came out, Jim Brosnan said his publisher said there was no way any sex could be in the book, that he was lucky to get the drinking in, and that he envied Bouton on that account.
     
    cyclingwriter2 likes this.
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