Ball Four
Posted by: Bradley McDonald
Lee Ann would be proud of me. I found time to read a book!
I just finished Ball Four, a recount of a year in Jim Bouton's life as a professional baseball player in 1969. The book received a lot of attention recently when Jose Canseco's book came out, because Ball Four was one of the first "tell-all" books in sports and supposedly caused quite a bit of controversy when it originally came out. Since Sports Illustrated rated it number three on it's "Top 100 Sports Books of All Time" list, I decided to check it out.
The book is written in diary form and it basically describes the everyday interactions of players in that day, which doesn't sound too much different from players today. Bouton writes about drinking, locker-room pranks, disagreeing with coaches, and even drugs, but it's his wit that makes the book a good read. Some of the pranks and player-interactions that Bouton describes are very comical.
If Ball Four had been released today it probably wouldn't have caused much of a stir, because there have been plenty of "tell-all" accounts since then and we know, especially with the steroid scandal, that ball players are humans, too. Ball Four definitely gets the point across that Major League players are completely fallible. Bouton didn't save himself from the criticism either, and I got the picture of him as being self-conscious about his abilities and trying to fit in with the other players. He gets down on himself when he doesn't do well and wonders if players respect him, but he keeps the whole mood of the book light-hearted with his witty, and sometimes irreverent, comments.
The last line of the book is a great quote and sums up how Bouton feels about baseball: "You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."
It was interesting to get a behind-the-scenes view of players and it turns out, it's not too much different than how my high-school baseball team acted! I would recommend Ball Four as a light read, but be forewarned, there is some graphic language involved.
Lee Ann would be proud of me. I found time to read a book!
I just finished Ball Four, a recount of a year in Jim Bouton's life as a professional baseball player in 1969. The book received a lot of attention recently when Jose Canseco's book came out, because Ball Four was one of the first "tell-all" books in sports and supposedly caused quite a bit of controversy when it originally came out. Since Sports Illustrated rated it number three on it's "Top 100 Sports Books of All Time" list, I decided to check it out.
The book is written in diary form and it basically describes the everyday interactions of players in that day, which doesn't sound too much different from players today. Bouton writes about drinking, locker-room pranks, disagreeing with coaches, and even drugs, but it's his wit that makes the book a good read. Some of the pranks and player-interactions that Bouton describes are very comical.
If Ball Four had been released today it probably wouldn't have caused much of a stir, because there have been plenty of "tell-all" accounts since then and we know, especially with the steroid scandal, that ball players are humans, too. Ball Four definitely gets the point across that Major League players are completely fallible. Bouton didn't save himself from the criticism either, and I got the picture of him as being self-conscious about his abilities and trying to fit in with the other players. He gets down on himself when he doesn't do well and wonders if players respect him, but he keeps the whole mood of the book light-hearted with his witty, and sometimes irreverent, comments.
The last line of the book is a great quote and sums up how Bouton feels about baseball: "You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it turns out that it was the other way around all the time."
It was interesting to get a behind-the-scenes view of players and it turns out, it's not too much different than how my high-school baseball team acted! I would recommend Ball Four as a light read, but be forewarned, there is some graphic language involved.
