JIM BOUTON, RIP

Powerline ^ | 14 July 2019 | Paul Mirengoff

[FreeReign]

Somehow, I hadn’t been bothered by Bouton’s snobbery, elitism, and condescension the first time around.

I picked up on Bouton's condescension the first time that I read it.

That said, the Yankees and Mantle wound up forgiving Bouton, so who am I to hold a grudge against Bouton.

RIP Jim Bouton.

[xp38]

That move to Milwaukee has a few silver linings. In the fallout from that move Seattle threatened a lawsuit against the American League. To make the lawsuit go away Seattle gets the Mariners but in order to have an even number of teams Toronto gets the Blue Jays which in turn 16 years later leads to back to back World Series success. In the fallout of that Toronto gets an NBA franchise a couple of years later in 1995. It only takes that franchise 24 seasons before it wins it all this year. So thanks Pilots/Brewers for making championships possible here in the great white north! :)

[bobby.223]

Funny/neat how things sometimes work out isn’t it? And those ‘92-’93 Jays Championship Teams were very under rated imho.

[bobby.223]

Great post/stories 76! If there was a ‘cooler’, all around team/group of guys, (any team, in any sport), than the ‘68-’69, when they really hit their stride, through the ‘74-’75 Boston Bruins I never saw it! (And the heck with those Canadians and that freakin’ dirtbag Ferguson!) I loved those guys! Derek’s book was a fun but sad read.

[xp38]

As Joe Garagiola put it in the title of his book Baseball Is a Funny Game.

[bobby.223]

I agree with that!

[Bullish]

Yup, good little baseball read.

[bobby.223]

I have both of Brosnan’s books, (’The Long Season’, a diary of the 1959 season, and ‘Pennant Race’, a diary of the 1961 season), and I think the raciest kiss and tell things in them were about he and his wife knocking back a few Martinis once in awhile! (Oh the horror!) Both books are a good read to anyone who followed MLB back then!

[Huskrrrr]

Yes! Great documentary, also including a young Kurt Russell.

[Defiant]

I read his book about 200 times.

[Scooter100]

Precise quote from Ball Four, by Jim Bouton, 1970, Dell Pub., p.187:

"Getting on the airplane in Cleveland we ran into the Kansas City Royals. There was a lot of conversation because we're both expansion teams and a lot of us have been rescued from the same junkpile. The funniest line was about Moe Drabowski. They said he was sick on the bus the other night and puked up a panty girdle."

I stand corrected. I read the book when it came out almost 50 years ago. Not surprising my memory was off. Please note I at least got the "puking" and "panties" part right. I would have felt the total fool if I had remembered "jockstrap", or "shower thongs".

Anyway, a great book from the past, and a great ballplayer, RIP, Jim Bouton.

[jmacusa]

In the summer of 1974 my father was working as a construction project manager renovating the place for American Airlines which had bought the Shoreham. My older brother who was off from college for the summer and he and I were working there. The place was a dump. It had been the ''grand dame'' of DC hotels in it's day but I think it's time had passed. This was during the Summer of Watergate and even as an 18 year old kid I knew something historic was happening . I remember also in the hotels cocktail lounge a brash, new young comedian doing political satire was packing them in. His name was Mark Russel.

[bobby.223]

Yeah, and who knows how great a career Jim would have had if he had not fried his arm in ‘65?

[bobby.223]

Cool story!

[Some Fat Guy in L.A.]

My favorite baseball book. RIP Bulldog.

The stuff Bouton wrote in Ball Four was shocking back in the day. And they didn’t make big bucks back then - I remember he wrote about holding out for $30K one year, which is what even marginal players make per week now, and stars make per game.