I liked the Bronsan book when I read it years ago, but I find it surprising that anyone would list it rather than--or at least alongside--Ball Four, unless you object to Bouton's book for the same reasons Bowie Kuhn and Mickey Mantle did.
― clemenza, Saturday, 9 April 2011 15:20 (thirteen years ago) link
This is perfect -- I was just hunting for a good baseball book list (and couldn't really find one anywhere).
― Mordy, Saturday, 9 April 2011 23:04 (thirteen years ago) link
Ball Four is a tough read - the narrator is so, I don't know, unlikeable (and not a good writer, though why should he be). Have read about a third and have put it into the "not right now" pile.
― Mark C, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 17:34 (thirteen years ago) link
I didn't read B4 til a couple years ago and found it immensely readable.
I've only read two of the books on that list in their entirety.
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 12 April 2011 17:37 (thirteen years ago) link
ie, Malamud and Angell.
tho I miiiight have read the Breslin book on the Mets a very long time ago.
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 12 April 2011 17:38 (thirteen years ago) link
the coover book is great but not really about baseball
― congratulations (n/a), Tuesday, 12 April 2011 17:56 (thirteen years ago) link
Ball Four is a tough read - the narrator is so, I don't know, unlikeable (and not a good writer, though why should he be).
Majorly, majorly disagree. Unlikeable, maybe--I find Bouton very likeable, more in love with the quirks and absurdities of baseball than an underpaid, aging reliever barely hanging on with a doomed franchise ought to be, but I can see where someone might find him to be a self-obsessed wiseass. But as to the other point, I think he's a better writer than most writers. (How much credit belongs with Leonard Shecter, his editor, I don't know.)
― clemenza, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 18:49 (thirteen years ago) link
Clemenza and I totally agree! Bouton is immensely likeable and a great writer. A lousy actor though. Laughable in the Long Goodbye.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 12 April 2011 20:12 (thirteen years ago) link
No Eight Men Out? That's a very good book imo.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 12 April 2011 20:14 (thirteen years ago) link
I couldn't make the adjustment to us agreeing, Alex...I think Bouton's fine in The Long Goodbye. Not an actor, agreed, but the guy he's playing is a superficial operator whose slickness is supposed to contrast with Gould's dogged, somewhat clumsy virtuousness, and by that yardstick I think he does okay. When he tells Marlowe at the end that that's the way it is, guys like him are chumps who are there to be taken advantage of, I find Bouton credibly slimy.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 21:38 (thirteen years ago) link
I can't stand the movie so I don't really like anything about it.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 12 April 2011 22:04 (thirteen years ago) link
Surprising...Just the movie itself, or '70s Altman in general? Mark Rydell delivers a line that's on my short-list of funniest ever.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 12 April 2011 22:21 (thirteen years ago) link
The movie. Although there are other 70s Altman flicks I can't stand there is plenty I love.
― Fig On A Plate Cart (Alex in SF), Tuesday, 12 April 2011 22:52 (thirteen years ago) link
1921: The Yankees, the Giants, and the Battle for Baseball Supremacy in New York, written by SABR members Lyle Spatz and Steve Steinberg, is the winner of the 2011 Seymour Medal, which honors the best book of baseball history or biography published during the preceding calendar year.
http://sabr.org/latest/spatz-and-steinbergs-1921-awarded-2011-seymour-medal
― your generation appalls me (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 13 April 2011 06:07 (thirteen years ago) link
Wow, impressed with the consensus on Ball Four. I should pick it back up then, huh!
― Mark C, Wednesday, 13 April 2011 13:02 (thirteen years ago) link
I'd also recommend the follow-up, I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally, which covers Bouton's half-season with the Astros in '70, his release, and the fallout from Ball Four (some priceless stuff on Bowie Kuhn). Not as good, but good nonetheless. He also wrote a book on managers that I read years ago and liked. There were chapters on Harry Walker, Joe Schultz (shitfuck, a must), Houk, etc. Pretty sure it was called I Managed Good, but Boy Did They Play Bad.
Bouton has a website where you can arrange to get books autographed: http://www.jimbouton.com/. I continue to think about doing this...it's a little pricey, but I think the money goes to charity.
― clemenza, Wednesday, 13 April 2011 16:48 (thirteen years ago) link
for Ball Four fans:
http://www.hardballtimes.com/main/article/ball-four-tracers/
― resistance does not require a firearm (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 15 May 2011 00:12 (thirteen years ago) link
So thank you all for getting me to stick with Ball Four. It's an awesome piece of work, insightful and fascinating, and Bouton comes across clever, compassionate and decades ahead of his time. His team-mates, for the most part, not so much! I definitely want to pick up the sequel now.
― Mark C, Monday, 20 June 2011 10:47 (twelve years ago) link
Shawn Green has a Zen-inflected memoir out:
http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/8/2/2306220/shawn-green-interview
― satan club sandwich (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 3 August 2011 13:52 (twelve years ago) link
An interesting postscript to The Echoing Green -- Ralph Branca just found out, through Joshua Prager, that his mother was Jewish and that several of his relatives died at Auschwitz:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/sports/baseball/for-branca-an-asterisk-of-a-different-kind.html?pagewanted=all
― satan club sandwich (Dr Morbius), Monday, 15 August 2011 15:28 (twelve years ago) link
Stumbled over this searching for a Merritt Ranew quote:
http://www.funtrivia.com/playquiz/quiz1704811385e00.html
20/25.
― clemenza, Sunday, 30 October 2011 12:49 (twelve years ago) link
I'm reading "Ball Four" again and was looking up some of the players on B-R. Cheers on sponsoring the Joe Schultz page, clemenza!
(although there are MUCH better Joe Schultz quotes, IMO) :)
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Saturday, 31 March 2012 09:53 (twelve years ago) link
Thanks. There are so many to choose from. Knowing I couldn't get "shitfuck" or "fuckshit" in there, that eliminated about half off the top. There's just something about the absurdity of the roast beef quote I love. (I used to sponsor Fred Talbot's page, too, until a relative of his contacted me about giving it up.)
― clemenza, Saturday, 31 March 2012 14:22 (twelve years ago) link
When you finish, NoTime, try the quiz I linked to in the post previous to yours--it's still up.
― clemenza, Saturday, 31 March 2012 16:02 (twelve years ago) link
I got 21/25. I probably should have done better considering I just read the book.
Schultz never managed again, with the exception of a cup of coffee with the Tigers a few years later. I guess his year with the Pilots gave him a reputation as a loser that he couldn't shake?
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Saturday, 31 March 2012 20:16 (twelve years ago) link
http://img.getglue.com/books/big_hair_plastic_grass_funky_ride_through_baseball_america_in_swinging_70s/dan_epstein/normal.jpg
I must have been asleep when this came out--it even gets mentioned upthread. Bought a copy today, looking forward to it so much. (I loved Phil Pepe's oral history of '70s baseball a few years ago.)
― clemenza, Sunday, 24 June 2012 20:49 (eleven years ago) link
Learned about this thanks to the above book. I have no recollection of it whatsoever:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7s4T_gypZDY
― clemenza, Thursday, 28 June 2012 04:51 (eleven years ago) link
Two-thirds of the way through this--love it. Reminding me of so many things I'd forgotten: e.g., the '76 NL batting race, where Griffey to sat to protect his lead and had Madlock go 4-4 to pass him. And so much else that I wasn't aware of. Three examples: 1) That if you write Dock Ellis's name like it would be formally alphabetized, you get Ellis, D.; 2) Danny Ozark, as the '76 Phillies started to squander a huge lead to the Pirates: "Every Napoleon had his Watergate"; 3) Game 5 of the '74 Series, with Charlie Finley sharing the owner's box with Rock Hudson and Anita Bryant.
― clemenza, Saturday, 7 July 2012 00:59 (eleven years ago) link
Yeah, this book sounds awesome.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Saturday, 7 July 2012 12:02 (eleven years ago) link
I was looking up a Yogi Berra quote online today, and found the Napoleon/Watergate quote attributed to him. My guess: Ozark actually said it, but eventually every great malapropism gets credited to Berra.
― clemenza, Saturday, 7 July 2012 23:16 (eleven years ago) link
http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/09/17/tony-la-russa-holds-a-grudge-against-keith-law/
― Andy K, Monday, 17 September 2012 15:01 (eleven years ago) link
Enjoying most of this:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51364op%2BHbL._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA300_SH20_OU01_.jpg
The chapter on the draft and risk/reward is great; it loses me when they get into PITCHf/x, though, where it's like reading a dry textbook.
― clemenza, Monday, 17 September 2012 15:18 (eleven years ago) link
Good stuff:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_fXNLNzNuk
― clemenza, Monday, 26 November 2012 23:18 (eleven years ago) link
on Jim Brosnan and The Long Season:
http://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2012/10/25/quit-thinking-you%E2%80%99re-hurting-the-club/
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 23 January 2013 21:03 (eleven years ago) link
Neyer read the Piazza book so you don't have to
http://mlb.sbnation.com/2013/2/15/3991264/mike-piazzas-new-book-has-something-for-everyone
― saltwater incursion (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 16 February 2013 03:08 (eleven years ago) link
Found some good ones at a thrift-store sale today, all brand new:
MVP -- Robert W. Cohen (evaluates all the awards--looks to have a sabermetric bent)Ty and the Babe -- Tom StantonHigh Heat: The Secret History of the Fastball and the Improbable Search for Fastest Pitcher of All Time -- Tim WendelThe Stark Truth: The Most Overrated & Underrated Players in Baseball History -- Jayson Stark (going to start on this right away)2012 Prospect Handbook -- Baseball America (I used to buy every Baseball America/Sporting News/Elias/STATS/etc. annual on the market when they were everywhere as remainders...the glut slowed down a few years ago)
― clemenza, Monday, 18 February 2013 00:47 (eleven years ago) link
I've never read Jayson Stark, but my impression was that he was someone worth reading. 40 pages into The Stark Truth, I don't think I've recoiled from a book this much since a Cintra Wilson collection I read a few years ago. I mean just him as a writer, never mind some of his over/underrated valuations. His jokes are so clunky and obvious, and he never lets up--he's got three terrible eating jokes in his Babe Ruth entry. And from what I've read and skimming ahead, he's got Kevin Brown, Tommy John, David Wells, Graig Nettles, Andruw Jones, and Bobby Abreu as overrated, and Roger Bresnahan, Todd Helton, Derek Jeter, and Pete Rose as underrated; putting my own feelings aside, wouldn't the general perception of those players be reversed? Lots of strawmen, too. Ron Blomberg is his #1 most overrated DH of all time...I remember Ron Blomberg--has anybody under 35 even heard of him?
― clemenza, Monday, 18 February 2013 15:36 (eleven years ago) link
Stuart Tanner on his new labor-centered book The Baseball Trust:
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2013/04_-_April/Q_A__Stuart_Banner_on_baseball_s_antitrust_carve-out/
― Pope Rusty I (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 6 April 2013 16:05 (eleven years ago) link
http://i43.tower.com/images/mm101710363/pure-baseball-keith-hernandez-paperback-cover-art.jpg
This is terrific and can be had on the cheap. Watch two ball games with Keith. Great riff on the hit-and-run and inside pitching strategy.
― Playoff Starts Here (san lazaro), Sunday, 7 April 2013 20:46 (eleven years ago) link
Mathewson back on the shelves
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/10/christy-mathewson-and-the-thinking-mans-game.html
― eclectic husbandry (Dr Morbius), Saturday, 2 November 2013 14:03 (ten years ago) link
Re-reading Ball Four. Not for the first time, but the first in at least 20 years. Just got sent back to Vancouver--great as ever.
The one thing you can do now is check out some of Bouton's stories. There's one about both Tommy Davis (in the majors) and Phil Linz (in the minors) getting co-operation from the opposing catcher so they could preserve .300 averages for the season--in both instances, they get a hit.
I'll give Bouton a passing grade on that one, but just barely. He identifies the Davis season as when he was with the Mets, and sure enough, Davis did hit .302 that year, and went 1-3 for the final game. But it didn't come down to the last AB; he doubled in his second AB, then grounded out in the 4th, then got pulled. Technically, he could have gone 0-3 and still would have rounded to .300. More important: the story is told as Davis's old friend John Roseboro doing him a favor, but Jeff Torborg caught that game--Roseboro only pinch-hit after Davis was gone. As far as Linz goes, the only minor-league season he had that was close to .300 was .298 in 1959. I can see where minor-league stats might have been very unreliable then, and something got revised later on. Otherwise, the story is based on something that never happened.
― clemenza, Saturday, 19 April 2014 23:56 (ten years ago) link
print the legend
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Sunday, 20 April 2014 05:20 (ten years ago) link
I was at the documentary festival this afternoon, waiting for a film to start, when the guy beside me noticed my copy of Ball Four. "Good book"--said he'd read it long ago.
Earlier, as I stood in line outside, I started giggling out loud at this part:
The kids beat the fathers 40-0, and Sibby Sisti said, "Forty runs, for crissakes, and nobody gets knocked down." And McNertney said he was standing next to Sal Maglie during the game and swore he heard Sal saying, "He's a first-ball hitter"--"a high-ball hitter"--"a fastball hitter"--and none of the kids was over four feet tall.
If you post on ILB and have never read it, order a copy tonight from AbeBooks or somewhere.
― clemenza, Sunday, 27 April 2014 23:15 (ten years ago) link
I can't believe you hadn't read it in over 20 years. I think I last read it about 3-4 years ago, but it's the kind of book I feel like I should be reading every year when spring training starts.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Monday, 28 April 2014 08:45 (ten years ago) link
I saw Sibby Sisti at a SABR convention (before he died, as Yogi wd say)
― images of war violence and historical smoking (Dr Morbius), Monday, 28 April 2014 12:19 (ten years ago) link
That's great. Bouton goes fairly easy on Sisti, who's just there to qualify for a pension.
One thing I'm really noticing this time is how the book is like a blueprint for sabermetrics to a degree. First of all in a general sense--questioning conventional wisdom at every turn (I think Ball Four helped me get ready for the Abstracts--but also in some specifics. Bouton talks about how wedded writers are to a pitcher's W-L record, and how it doesn't matter how you're actually pitching--pitch well for a month and win nothing, then win a game giving up six runs, and the writers will be there to ask when you started to turn things around. Also, at one point, he talks about the mindset of a professional player, and how in a key situation he'll say, "I've been here before; I've succeeded and I've failed, and none of that has any bearing on this particular at-bat." You could easily translate that as skepticism about the idea of clutch hitters.
― clemenza, Monday, 28 April 2014 13:43 (ten years ago) link
He ridicules a lot of dumb sports cliches but I wouldn't go that far. There are many 2 IP, 2 H, 2BB, 0 ER appearances that he calls "good" or "excellent". He pitches into trouble, escapes without giving up a run, and sees it as a job well done, which isn't really true, especially for relievers.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Monday, 28 April 2014 15:55 (ten years ago) link
I was curious about that, so I added up the most basic totals for his excellent and good outings. (If you haven't read the book, Bouton has a detailed personal game log at the back, with a rating for each appearance as excellent/good/fair/poor.) The numbers are microscopic in my old paperback, so hopefully this is accurate.
In the aggregate, at least, his designation of excellents is spot-on, I think:
IP - 72.1H - 33BB - 19K - 59ER - 4ERA - 0.50H/9 - 4.11KK/BB - 3.11
He's looser with his definition of good, agreed, but I don't think it's that unreasonable a description:
IP - 24.2H - 22BB - 8K - 19ER - 7ERA - 2.55H/9 - 8.03K/BB - 2.38
Also, when Bouton talks about giving up hits throughout the book, he's often very specific about which ones were cheap hits and which ones were clean. Is that partly where all the work being done on defense right now resides? (An actual question--I don't know.)
Anyway, I think it depends on what sabermetrics means to you. If it means WAR and BABIP and UZR, then no, Bouton has nothing to do with sabermetrics. How could he? A player, much less a player in 1969, doesn't think that way.
But to me there's a direct line from Bouton to James in the more general sense I described above: "Everyone says this is true--it is actually true?" That's everywhere in Ball Four, just like in the Abstracts.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 29 April 2014 23:20 (ten years ago) link
"is it" in the last line...if I manage to get through a post without a typo, other gremlins take over.
― clemenza, Tuesday, 29 April 2014 23:23 (ten years ago) link
Holy crap, nice work. I checked my copy of the book, and you're right, there are some questionable decisions over whether to call an appearance "excellent" or "good" or whatever, but in the aggregate, his designations are justified.
I didn't mean that Bouton anticipated the use of complicated statistics but it's true that he tended to analyze his performances on a batter by batter basis, rather than just looking at the linescore for the day. An outing where you retire five straight batters but make a mistake to the sixth and he hits it out could still qualify as a very good outing, even though 1 ER in 2 IP might not look impressive. He certainly knows it's different than 4 H, 1 ER, 2 IP and getting out of a jam when the defense turns a double play. He also tracks inherited runners scored (and understands why it's important for relievers), which was likely somewhat revolutionary for the time.
― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, 30 April 2014 05:43 (ten years ago) link