Ball Four - 20th Anniversary Edition by Jim Bouton - Softcover 1990

Description: "Ball Four - 20th Anniversary Edition" by Jim Bouton - Softcover - Published in 1990 by Macmillan - 472 pages - EXCELLENT condition. Ball Four might be the greatest baseball book ever written! What Jim Bouton accomplished with Ball Four was to tear the cover off of professional sports by exposing the tangled core underneath the canned responses to interviews, the feet of clay of sports heroes, and the mundane existence of living out of a suitcase for seven months of the year. The haloed Yankees hated this book as it painted their hero Mickey Mantle and other Yankee icons as less than shining lights; the fans didn't care for that either. Players thought it broke baseball’s unwritten rules against revealing what goes on off the field. But Bouton was always an iconoclast; he cared and fought for what he thought was fair pay long before the free agent era; he talked to reporters in thoughtful conversations, and he took notes. After Bouton blew out his arm for the Yankees, he reinvented himself as a knuckleball pitcher and joined a new franchise, the Seattle Pilots. Filled with castoffs and fringe players, the Pilots were the perfect team for Bouton to chronicle what really goes on in a season for a baseball team, both on the field and behind the scenes. Funny, wry, and reflective daily recordings from a man had one last bit of glory left in his arm. This is not the first baseball book following a season on a day-to-day basis (The Long Season by Jim Brosnan has that distinction), but it is the first such book not to pull any punches. When first published in 1970, Ball Four stunned the sports world. The commissioner, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Today, Jim Bouton is still not invited to Oldtimer's Days at Yankee Stadium. But his landmark book is still being read by people who don't ordinarily follow baseball. Again, this book is in EXCELLENT condition. No collection of baseball books is complete without this classic. Check out the scan for the cover and so you can judge the condition for yourself (unlike many other booksellers, who post generic scans, the book in my scan is the one you will get). You can try to buy this book for less money from one of those eBay booksellers with hundreds, if not thousands of negatives (you know the ones I refer to) and be lucky if the book is delivered to you in the stated condition (if you even get it at all), or you can buy it from me and be assured of a prompt delivery and of receiving an item true to the condition indicated. You won't be disappointed. All previous buyers of my baseball books have been completely satisfied. I have many others available; please check my listings. The book will be sent via Media mail shipping in the USA. I will combine shipping to reduce charges for multiple items. If you purchase more than one item, please request an invoice for the appropriate combined shipping discount. See my auctions and my eBay store for hundreds of books and a wide variety of sports and non-sports collectibles. All items are packed with care to insure safe delivery. Please contact me if you have any questions. 9-22-23 -- 20.2

Price: 15.99 USD

Location: Santa Ana, California

End Time: 2024-11-23T00:07:00.000Z

Shipping Cost: 5.93 USD