Jim Bouton's "Ball Four" was contrarian tome

(Note: It is coincidence that I am posting this on Jim Bouton's birthday, March 8. A friend just gave me the heads-up. We wish J.B. well on this day, at a time when he's dealing with serious health issues.)
 
How to explain the book "Ball Four" to young people of today? I guess it's like trying to explain the "Gong Show." The Gong Show had nothing in common with the talent shows on TV today, except in the most superficial way. If it wasn't a true talent show, then what was it? Ahem. That is a very difficult, or rather uncomfortable, question to answer. 
A book like "Ball Four" had to come along at that stage of our cultural history. The literary world was champing at the bit. (I guess it's "champing" and not "chomping.") 
Again I rather grope trying to explain all this. People my age are not proud trying to explain the deconstructionist wave that permeated so much of our culture back around 1970. What fed into this? Good question. 
We can cite the Vietnam war which tragically escalated partly because the journalism establishment in the U.S. was too compliant with government. Once the veneer of fraud was peeled away, there was a wellspring of anger. It colored my youth. It haunts me and many of my age. 
I've been to our local school and seen a poster that encourages kids to, among other things, follow directions, i.e. respect authority. The whole push to get the U.S. extricated from Vietnam required rejection of the respect/authority model. It was instilled in me so strongly, I probably could have used a deprogrammer eventually. 
I digested Jim Bouton's book "Ball Four" like so many young fans, mostly male. The book was an in-your-face rejection of the traditional sports book or sports biography. It showed human beings with none of their weaknesses stripped away. It seemed to revel in human failings and how our behavior can disappoint us. Mickey Mantle? He wasn't the Greek god type of soul that we may have felt he was. But did we really feel that? Maybe that in itself is myth. 
Again, "Ball Four" was deconstructionist in spades. It was hailed as a revolutionary sports book. It opened the door for imitators. Our heroes were exposing their navel, just as the Gong Show did on TV. Isn't life difficult and depressing? (And yes it's "navel" not "naval.")
 
And our elders just carried on
I'm sure the older generation was puzzled by the contrarian stuff. Puzzled and rather dismissive, I feel. "Oh, isn't that cute?" They wouldn't want to pay any mind, not after all they had been through with the Depression and World War II. They indulged their boomer kids. They put up with the annoying loud rock music. They did so with hardly a comment, yet they wouldn't choose to listen to this if you paid them. I don't think there was anything revelatory about human nature in "Ball Four" for them. They might be amused. Frankly, I think they'd shrug and just move on to other things. "Isn't that cute?" 
I was 15 years old in 1970. There was a wave of publicity about Ball Four in the media. The book gained attention due to complaints it was getting from the baseball establishment. We heard from people like Tony Kubek, the former Yankee on NBC's "Game of the Week." Kubek was confrontational with Bouton in an interview. I think Kubek realized this was the side of the fence he had to be on, if he knew what side his bread was buttered on. So much ado about small potatoes. 
For sure, "Ball Four" developed a cult-like devotion among a generation of male baseball fans who can today quote a lot of the potty-type humor from the book. The book was written in a time when excess consumption of alcohol was considered mature and amusing. 
I'd almost be embarrassed trying to explain Ball Four to a young person of today. The old deconstructionist template has had a stake driven through its heart.
What was the old cynicism like? I remember the movie "Bridge at Remagen," set in WWII but with an attitude about war cultivated during Vietnam. A soldier in a jeep is approached by a superior who says "you don't want the Russkies to beat us to Berlin, do you?" The guy in the jeep with an air of withdrawal says "think I should care?" A young person might be perplexed seeing this scene today. But such an air of shoulder-shrugging was common back around 1970. 
"Think I should care?" Maybe that defined the zeitgeist. 
It's important to me because it affected me. I enthusiastically digested "Ball Four." For better or worse I can quote a lot of the potty humor stuff. No need for me to show off doing that. 
Bouton dissed the traditional type of sports biography, the type that had the subject answer proper questions into a tape recorder. Then the author would tell the story in a sanitized way. Bouton and his fans would sneer at that. I'm of no mind to sneer today. I can understand both types of sports books, the proper kind and the more irreverent. I'm not stupid and I can understand there's always an underbelly to sports stories. Human nature is a given. 
A little of the deconstructionist stuff is not harmful. "Ball Four" just reveled in it too much. 
  

Yes, it could have been a case of bitterness
A high school friend of mine, Joe LaFave, summed up Ball Four by observing "Bouton was bitter." That assessment floats back into my mind now. Why? Here's what I think: Bouton's ability to pitch well in the majors gave him his greatest happiness in life. I don't think he has ever found a substitute for it. 
I suspect he'd try to deny that. He loved being a contrarian. But when he developed a sore arm after 1964, I think it devastated his psyche. You can tell reading Ball Four that Bouton reveled in being part of the Yankee glory. When his arm failed him - such a common thing to happen to pitchers then - he could see how he was getting put on the scrap heap, that no one cared about him in the same way anymore. Yes he was disposable. I think he was profoundly hurt. In many ways I cannot blame him. 
Surely these ballplayers entered their profession with the knowledge that the whole thing could well be meteoric, that there was hardly any guarantee they'd make the majors at all. Bouton crept in there and was in the spotlight to win two World Series games in 1964. He represented the Big Apple no less. Up there with Mantle. The Yankees of '60 through '64 took on an almost fairy tale-like quality. We sense this watching the Billy Crystal movie "61*." The Phil Linz harmonica incident had reach and gravitas (?), trivial though it was. 
Boomer boys were looking for idols as boys always do. Bouton's stardom ended ignominiously with a sore arm. Ah the pathos of our human experience. 
 
Ode to a conflicted guy
I'm pleased to have written a song about Jim Bouton. It could be called simply "Jim Bouton" or "Ballad of Jim Bouton." It's a strophic melody with two parts. I'm pleased to share the lyrics here. 
We feel for Bouton as his health issues seem to be mounting. Let's hope he copes as best he can. He is living in more idealistic times now. Kids need the old cynicism explained to them. It needs to be yanked from a time capsule.
History can repeat itself, oh yes it can.  
  
"Jim Bouton"

By Brian Williams

His name was Jim Bouton

And pitching was his game

For the pinstripe crew

Quite the winning brew

But it was not baseball

That got him so much fame

It was what he wrote so true

The life of a player was not so neat

The grass was not green everywhere

He wrote in his diary for all to read

The players were people laid bare

He bathed in the credo 
Of "give it all you've got" 
Throwing with such force
Knocking down the door

So hard was his fastball 
His cap would come right off

He is part of Yankees lore

He was in the limelight with Whitey Ford

The Yankees of yore we all loved

They played under Yogi in '64

And shone with their bats and their gloves

He soaked in the springtime

With newness in the air

Workouts in the South

Get the cobwebs out

As fans watched and wondered

Just how their team would fare

Bouton had his fastball down

And yet it is fleeting when your star shines

You'd better enjoy while you can

So Jim had his moments to seize the prize

To win all the love of the fans

He pitched in the Series

When Yankees were on top

Mantle in the groove

Maris in there too

And Jim had to figure

It would not ever stop

Optimism only grew

But fame can be fleeting for everyone

As even the Yankees would learn

And though they retreated from No. 1

Their image stayed classy for sure

So now Jim was seeing

His fortunes not so bright

Having to admit

Aging bit by bit

His arm was not able

To give him those great times

It was not his style to quit

So Jim found the savvy to find his course

Without any horsehide at hand

He found as a writer a whole new force

And "Ball Four" projected his brand

So then he got famous

For being just a scribe

He was in the news

With insightful views

He wrote of the grand game

With stories not denied

Of the escapades and booze

And though we loved Mickey with no restraint

We knew he was not a Greek god

The book only showed us his common strain

It really should not have seemed odd

So Jim had the ticket

To keep his baseball fame

How we loved "Ball Four"

Candid to the core

But don't you imagine

If he could have his way

He'd be on the mound once more

He saw the illusion that baseball sold

Of making the players out-sized

So Bouton portrayed them like mortal souls

So we knew they all laughed and cried

He pitched for the Pilots

In their brief history

So far from the Bronx

Far from those horn honks

The fans in Seattle

Could see the big league teams

With enjoyment they all watched

And Jim liked the city aside from sports

He talked of the art galleries

The team was expansion, a long-shot horse

So it came and went like a breeze

He pitched in the minors

Vancouver was the place

Mounties was their name

There in Triple-A

And then he was vaulted

Into a pennant race

It was like the good old days

So he was in Houston to feel the love

The Astros were playing with style

With Jim and his knuckler they made their run

And surely they made the fans smile

And when it was over

His work had just begun

Going through his notes

All the things he wrote

He went on a mission

To tell it like it was

Players are just normal folks

He saw all the pathos and broken dreams

Of players who would rise and fall

And yet there was laughter behind the scenes

So live for the moment, you all

His name was Jim  Bouton
And pitching was his game


- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com

 Jim with the Pilots, '69 (image from pinterest)