|
| 
 enlarge | Author: Jim Bouton
Publisher: Wiley
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy Used: $3.48
You Save: $12.47 (78%)
New (34) Used (32) Collectible (9) from $3.48
Avg. Customer Rating:  92 reviews
Sales Rank: 15212
Media: Paperback
Edition: 20th Anniversary
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 465
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.5 x 1.1
ISBN: 0020306652
Dewey Decimal Number: 796.357092
UPC: 021898306654
EAN: 9780020306658
ASIN: 0020306652
Publication Date: July 12, 1990
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Cover wear and may contain some marks or writing. Keen Northwest ships in 2 business days or less. Refunds for any reason if item returned within 30 days of shipment.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 Still funny after all these years August 25, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Still Hilarious the second time around. I've always been a baseball fan, coached by Dad and a family tradition. The humanizing of the players made me love it more. Never did understand the controversy, telling the truth about greedy, exploitive owners maybe? But that's true of all big business from ENRON on down the ladder (that was never a secret). Steroids? In this one it's greenies (uppers) pitchers use them in this iteration and made their sore arms and tired muscles disappear. The disappointing thing is no one seems concerned about the health issues. Sports and business all have a history of taking any advantage, cheating is in the eye of the beholder. Heck with records, throw them all out. Baseball is about fun, and parents interacting and enjoying their children.
 Play ball! May 16, 2007
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
This insider's account of playing in the big leagues is side-splitting entertainment. Bouton concentrates on the fun, the funny, and the amusingly odd aspects of what so many call "adults playing a boys' game." In his well-travelled career, Bouton played for the Yankees, Braves, Astros, and even the late, not-so-great Seattle Pilots. His personal contacts and anecdotes with many well-known baseball personalities (many still active as commentators, managers, and broadcasters) reminds us all that life, as well as sports, should be fun and we should keep an eye open for the humor in mundane siutations. Anyone with an interest in baseball will truly get more than a few chuckles from this well written book.
Men... or Boys? April 12, 2007
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
This hilarious account of an injured pitcher's comeback will have you rolling on the floor as you get an interesting look at baseball players way back when.
A hilarious inside look to why these are not men playing a kid's game. They are just big kids. April 4, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Jim Boutin was a very successful pitcher with the New York Yankees before injuring himself and having to become a knuckleball pitcher for the expansion Seattle Pilots. He wrote a diary of his comeback and it is nothing short of hilarious. The picture he paints of major leaguers is that of young boys who play pranks on one another and get their feelings hurt very easily. The only difference is these kids drive sports cars and pick up women during games. One scene in particular where they put talcum powder in another player's blow dryer makes me laugh every time I think of it. What makes the book so good is Bouton's natural way of writing so that the diary entires are not disjointed like Jim Brosnan's "The Long Season", but they have a flow to them. Even though I did not know many of the players he referenced in the book because it was before my time, it still remains a timeless classic.
My All-Time Favorite Book (in 1971); Still Way Up There on the List January 21, 2007
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
My prospective 12th grade English teacher wasn't too impressed with my choice of an "all-time favorite book", but in 1971, "Ball Four" by Jim Bouton was it. Growing up in central New York state, I'd been a Yankee fan for my entire childhood, and remembered Bouton pitching for the Yanks in the World Series in the early '60s. In "Ball Four", Bouton touches on those days, in the process demythologizing some of my heroes--Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford in particular--but I wasn't bitter; I was fascinated with the stories of how my athletic heroes behaved as human beings.
Even better were Bouton's diary accounts of his days as a reliever with the Seattle Pilots, a one-year team that quickly moved to Milwaukee and exists today as the Brewers, and with the Houston Astros (featuring future Hall of Famer Joe Morgan and managed by Harry "The Hat" Walker". How else would I remember that the manager of that team was Joe Schulz, a crusty old baseball lifer whose two favorite "words" would be sure to get this review removed from view (the first started with F and ended with T, the second started with S and ended with K). As an ex-Cardinal, Schulz exhorted his players to "get the win and go in to "pound that B...weiser". As a 16-year old I also viewed with great hilarity the crude humor of ballplayers on the road--a phrase I still use today came from a ballplayer told that a game would start at 9:30 a.m, "Nine thirty? H..l, I'm not done throwing up by that time of day!" After a bumpy bus ride, another player offers to buy the bus. I'll leave it to you to guess why. In response to Walker's niggling managerial style, the Astros composed their own theme song "It Makes a Fellow Proud to Be an Astro" ("if we win our game each day, what the f... can Harry say/it makes a fellow proud to be an Astro!")
Bouton also takes us through his pitching season--outing by outing--you get a feel of how seriously ballplayers evaluate each game (at least Bouton did), and at Bouton's level of "last man in the bullpen", how tenuous their hold on a major league position is. Maybe there was more to this now famous book than Ms. Trapnell gave it credit for in 1971.
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
