Bill Freehan as author, second fiddle to Jim Bouton

Baseball was once like a make believe world to the young fans, overwhelmingly male, for whom it was important as a backdrop for growing up. Make believe? Maybe it was surreal. We wanted the players to fill an inner emotional need for us. We wanted them to be heroes. We wanted them to vanquish the opposition.
All of which is fine if viewed in context, in other words, if we have clarity about the players being part gladiator and part human being. It was the latter we had trouble grasping. So quickly we'd lose interest in a player when he could no longer produce. Our conscience might have suggested we care about all these guys. And in a cursory way, we did. But why were we following the game? It was to root for wins, to root for the ball flying over the fence. Or, for your team's pitcher to overwhelm opponents' bats.
The publishing world sensed the void re. our understanding of players as real people. Real multi-dimensional people who had the problems common to all humanity: money, fidelity in marriage, relational skills etc. Jim Brosnan wrote a book that was before its time. He was the forerunner as a fully literate person ready to share on the highs and lows of being a pro athlete. His book was called "The Long Season." It passed muster with the erudite types.

Society was not quite ready. Not that the book induced scandal, it was rather a case of society just wanting to stick with its comfortable template of athletes as cardboard figures. The book seemed mostly a curiosity. But the literary world definitely took note. With Brosnan having paved the way, we got in 1970 a flowering of an avant garde approach to sports journalism.
There was no aversion to scandal in connection to "Ball Four," the book by Jim Bouton. I took interest in this book to a fault. What I mean is that I took the new approach to heart too much. The book was not going to become the new standard, pushing aside the existing order as it were. But there was pressure in around the year 1970 to be avant garde in all things. American society was inspecting its navel. Maybe "you had to be there."
The pre-existing order was not as Neanderthal as we were pushed to think. That order was one of recognizing a certain set of values. Accuracy in information was in fact respected. With that pillar in place, the genre called for respect, whereas Bouton would have offered a sneering attitude.
Today we can take seriously the type of sports biographies I checked out of my elementary school library. Bouton sniffed at these books by noting that the subject merely answered questions into a tape recorder. So, such books might seem superficial. Given that the audience for many of these books could be described as "juvenile," I'm not concerned about any superficiality. Frankly my attitude is: whatever gets kids to read is great!
So, Bouton plowed through the norms of sports journalism to write what was called a "kiss and tell" book. So quaint, because the taboos of that time no longer exist. No inhibitions now.
"Ball Four" was diary-style, compiled through the 1969 summer. Bouton was basically a washed-up pitcher seeking to stick around with his knuckleball. His story reinforces the delicate nature of athletes' bodies, how fragile their careers can be. All players have their bodies fail them eventually. Rare is a player who walks away before misfortune afflicts him from a variety of directions. Star players can have an awkward decline. We might forget that Harmon Killebrew wore a Kansas City Royals uniform after he left our Twins. Clark Griffith of the Twins ownership said he couldn't bear seeing Harmon in that uniform. The movie "Pride of St. Louis" showed us Dizzy Dean playing with Tulsa, in "the bushes" as it were, after his heyday in the bigs.
 
Tigers catcher in the writing mix
Bill Freehan of the Detroit Tigers kept a diary in the 1969 season just like Bouton. Freehan's resulting book "Behind the Mask" ended up as a footnote compared to "Ball Four."
I have always felt that Bouton's success as author was in concert with Leonard Shecter who was a writing pro. Bouton was lucky. Playing for three different teams in 1969 including one in the minors - this made the book far more interesting than if he had stayed with the Seattle Pilots throughout. I have wondered if World Publishing actually had more than one player keep a diary in '69, the idea being to eventually go with the most interesting one. An aggressive publisher could get lots of juicy stories out of anyone who had spent several years in the big leagues.
Bouton did not disappoint.
I have always felt that Bouton was made permanently bitter by his sore arm. I always felt he'd be willing to trade his success as author for 3-4 more years in his pitching prime. My high school friend Joe LaFave wrote off "Ball four" by saying that Bouton was "bitter." I could never dismiss that. Let's not forget the Freehan book, although that would be easy. The full name of his book: "Behind the Mask: An Inside Baseball Diary."
Freehan presented the book as a nice clean story. A laudable aim, yes, but not one promoting optimal commercial success. It was edgy by the standards of the time. It was considered revelatory that Freehan's Detroit Tigers cut slack for star pitcher Denny McLain, allowing him to break rules. What? Slack being cut for an outstanding performer? Well, if you're Pollyannish that's a revelation. I yawn.
Freehan was judged by many to have violated the sanctity of the clubhouse. A few years later, no one could have cared at all about McLain whose arm lost its snap. Actually the guy put on a lot of weight too. (He eventually confessed to drinking a ridiculous amount of soda pop.)

Jim Bouton

My childhood was filled with star pitchers emerging for the various big league clubs whose careers could be shockingly meteoric. We're talking the frailties of the human body, the unnatural demands imposed on pitching arms. Baseball showed mercy years later with heavy emphasis on the "pitch count." Baseball had too much $ invested in pitchers to impose such risk.
McLain showed the other-worldly feat of winning 30 games in 1968. He was pretty sharp again in '69, after which his decline was underway.
Freehan as catcher dealt with the wear and tear of that position. He fought to overcome various injuries but he ended up with a fine career. He was intelligent and durable. He might have been the best catcher in the American League for a decade. That was a longer "reign" than Bouton had.
Us Twins fans ought to feel kindred with the Detroit Tigers crowd: our teams were above average through the '60s but each won just a single pennant. We lost the World Series in '65 while Detroit won the Series in '68.
Years later the Twins had a player try a diary style of book: Danny Thompson whose book was "E-6." (Title is based on attributing an error to the shortstop.) Thompson was a decent hitter but a spotty fielder at shortstop, a position where fielding is mighty important. We felt for Danny as he had health issues, a form of leukemia as I recall, but frankly his book was a dud. I was bored trying to get through it.
Bouton's book did not set a good example for me as I developed my "chops" as a writer. Freehan's book could have set a better example, but I don't recall ever seeing it for sale. I'm happy for his success.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com