But the book is much more than about a game, as Mitchell Nathanson surmises in “Bouton: The Life of a Baseball Original” ($34.95, University of Nebraska Press 407 pages), the first biography of Bouton.īut Bouton was different. The book’s attraction at first was salacious tales of former teammate Mickey Mantle hitting a game-winning home run with a hangover, and players on hotel rooftops peering into the windows below. “Ball Four” was written in diary form and set in buses, bullpens, clubhouses and Bouton’s cramped hotel room with his wife and three small children. But not enough to interfere with life.”įifty years ago, Bouton wrote “Ball Four,” an insider’s look at baseball and often the first book teen-aged boys read without it being a class assignment. “I loved being a medium celebrity,” he’d often say. But Jim Bouton’s legacy was minted as a writer, and he reveled in that fame. Jim Bouton the pitcher was famous for a time for a few successful World Series appearances as a New York Yankee in the early 1960s.
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