Average Customer Review: ( 117 customer reviews )
Write an online review and share your thoughts with other customers.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
84 of 85 found the following review helpful:
 A Groundbreaking, Entertaining, and Funny Book May 09, 2002
By R. Angeloni
"slicktiger28"
"Ball Four" is a diary that covers the year of a baseball player, in this case Jim Bouton, who spent the 1969 season with the expansion Seattle Pilots and then the Houston Astros. Entertaining on many levels, "Ball Four" also serves as a mirror of the times -- in the late 1960s, many established concepts and ideas, in politics, music, mass media, and sports, were being shattered. Baseball, always about five years behind the curve, was always thought of as a game that was played by wholesome, All-American men. They were our heroes. Ball Four, however, sheds new light and revealed, for the first time, that baseball players, even some of the game's superstars, are human.
Bouton tells all, in, by today's standards, a tame fashion. We read about everything -- ballplayers cheating on their wives, playing with hangovers, racial problems between teammates, players taking uppers before a game, etc. Bouton is a very insightful writer and presents the material in a humorous manner, the humor, or barbs, is directed at his teammates, managers, coaches, and, in many instances, at himself.
Baseball was outraged when the book first came out in 1970. Many players and baseball executives considered Bouton a turncoat. But the years have shown that Ball Four was a groundbreaking book, one that set the standard for tell-all books to come. These other books, however, have never reached the level of excellence of Bouton's "Ball Four."
39 of 42 found the following review helpful:
The Greatest Baseball Book Ever Written Aug 17, 1999
By Weston J. Kathman
As far as I'm concerned, Ball Four is easily the best baseball book out there. I've read about 45 baseball books and nothing compares to Bouton's masterpiece. I've read this book four times and it still hasn't gotten old yet. I'm sure I'll read it at least ten more times and I doubt that I will ever get tired of it. What makes Ball Four better than any other baseball book is that it allows its readers to see the game from a player's perspective. Never has a book given such an up-close, in-the-locker-room look at baseball. Of course, Bouton himself is brilliant. I love his sarcasm and his biting wit. Ball Four might have been a pretty good book even if it had been written by a poor writer; Bouton, though, is an excellent storyteller and his attitude is what shapes the book. If you consider yourself a fan of the game, you will buy Ball Four immediately. It has given me great joy time and time again.
48 of 54 found the following review helpful:
the first to expose how players used the groupies Apr 05, 2008
By Michael R. Chernick
"statman31147"
Jim Bouton is a very bright man who probably could have been a scientist if he didn't go into baseball. In the 1960s when he played nobody wrote colorful exposes of the behind the scenes and road trip life of major league ball players. Bouton was the first with this book. It ended many friendships with teammates and probably broke up his marriage. The book might seem tame by todays standard. Alcohol was the players drug in those days and no one was shooting up steroids back then. But the book was racy, groundbreaking and controversial in its time much like Canseco's books are today.
You will also see that it led to several other books by Jim Bouton and even one by his ex wife (another analogy to Canseco whose ex wife also wrote a book). Bouton was a great pitcher but alas for only the period from 1961-1964. 1963 was his best season but even though he pitched well in that world series the Yankees got steamrolled by the Dodger staff with Drysdale and Koufax leading the way. After retirementhe came back to pitch for the Seattle Pilots expansion team in their first year. He had developed a knuckle ball and that allowed him some limited success. Bulldog Jim wrote a book about that experience too. He had a trick when he pitched for the Yankees. He wouldd deliberately wear a very loose fitting cap that would usually fall off his head as he delivered the pitch. This was distracting for the hitters. But in his day Bouton had a good fastball and a deceptive changeup and he was part of a great pitching rotation in 1963 that included Ford, Downing and Terry.
17 of 18 found the following review helpful:
Six Stars !! Oct 28, 2000
By paperbackriter
Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" is, without a doubt, the best book ever written by a professional athlete and is arguably the greatest baseball book of all-time. Dozens of kiss-n-tell sports novels have dotted the bestseller lists since "Ball Four's" publication in 1970, but none are as funny or revealing as Bouton's expose. All however, owe their very existence to "Ball Four" which shook the moral foundation of our national pastime upon its release. Bouton forever stripped away the All-American image of the professional sports hero with his humorous -- and sometimes X-rated -- locker room tales. Many, including then Commisioner Bowie Kuhn, felt that Bouton had forever tarnished baseball's image with his less than flattering portrayals of some of the game's biggest stars.(Namely Bouton's former Yankee teammate Mickey Mantle). Jim Bouton, in 1970, was Public Enemy #1 in the eyes of the baseball establishment. Truth be told, Bouton merely humanized the professional athlete. Many players--especially Bouton himself --are portrayed as being uncertain of their abilities and fearful of losing their jobs in the highly competitive world of major league baseball.(Such insecurity is best exemplified when Bouton is traded in mid-season from Seattle to Houston and lives to tell us about it!) Overall, "Ball Four" is one heckuva book. Bouton's sense of humor is absolutely side-splitting and his sensitivity, at times, is downright moving. This is a fantastic, groundbreaking novel which no sports fan should be without. Six Stars!!
18 of 21 found the following review helpful:
 Baseball classic Apr 23, 2001
By Jay Stevens
When "Ball Four" was published in 1970, Jim Bouton was attacked by players, sportswriters, and the owners for revealing the secret, sordid underbelly of professional baseball. Which should be enough right there to get you to read this thing. But in "Ball Four," Bouton also reveals the humanity of baseball, the fear, the hate, and the fun, which makes it one of the classics of baseball literature and a must read. Basically, "Ball Four" is a diary of the 1968 season written by a journeyman middle-relief knuckleballer. Before injuring his arm, and turning to the knuckleball, Bouton was a fireball pitcher for the New York Yankees. In his rookie season in 1962, Bouton won two games for the Yanks in the World Series. He played with Mantle and Ford. Then his arm went dead, and he found himself back in the minors, where he taught himself to throw the knuckler. The Yanks didn't think much of him anymore and traded him to the expansion Seattle Pilots (which left Seattle after a single year for...get this...Milwaukee), where he earned a spot as a spot starter and mopup long relief man. The book reveals the personalities of the players and managers and owners. It tells what the players do on the road, in the bullpen, in the minors. It reveals the petty nature of the coaching staff, who are usually all old-time baseball men, not very clever, not prone to trying new ways. It talks about the dicey contract negotiations by players in the days of the reserve clause, when average players made an average wage. Bouton travels in the world of boys. The players are mostly kids in their 20s, not educated, and spent their formative years in baseball. They like pranks. They like women, but they don't know either how to talk about them, or how to talk with them. Most of the time, they just try to look up their skirts. They drink. They sneak in past curfew. But Bouton also works in a competitive business market. Pitchers hide their arm injuries for fear of being sent down. Players fume over bench time. Coaches think small, because to be creative and new means being out of a job. And baseball is all these guys have. They have nothing else to turn to. Certainly in light of recent ballplayer behavior - think of the Pittsburgh cocaine scandals, Strawberry and Gooden, and the thuggish, drug-addled violence associated with football and basketball - "Ball Four" depicts a harmless and almost nostalgic view of baseball. But it still stands as a baseball classic for its honesty, its authenticity, and you wonder how much has changed since 1968. In the end, the players, owners, and writers should have celebrated the publication of "Ball Four." Sure, it did spawn a string of subsequent tell-alls, and it did forever swing aside the curtain shielding the ballplayer from public scrutiny, but this is a modern age, and we want heroes with all their flaws. Who is it more fun to root for on the field, a straw dummy propped up by a marketing machine, or a man?
See all 117 customer reviews on Amazon.com
|
