He was 39-20 over the 19 seasons but would compile a 4-15 record in 1965.īouton would have a 9-12 record in the last three seasons of his career after the Pilots bought him from the Yankees. He would only win nine more games over the next four seasons with the Yankees giving him 55 wins in seven seasons with the Yankees. Then the book shifts to the 1969 baseball season as Bouton struggles to make the Seattle Pilots pitching staff showing how far his career had regressed after winning 46 games for the Yankees in his first three seasons.

It was different from today when high powered agents negotiate $36 million contracts for a pitcher like Oliver Perez of the Mets who signed a $36 million contract for three years last winter and then won only three games during the season.īack then Bouton would fight tooth and nail to get a $2,000 raise and in his first season he made $7,000 which was the minimum salary at the time but got another $10,000 as his World Series share.

The book goes into detail about Bouton’s salary disputes with the New York Yankees in a time where there were no baseball agents and players had to negotiate for the best contract they could wheedle out of management. He writes about the shenanigans baseball players indulge in during a baseball season. It is written in diary form and gives Jim Bouton’s views on his dealings with general managers, managers and other players. It is one of the fastest reads I have read. I read Ball Four the first time in the 1970’s before reading it again almost forty years later last week. Jim Bouton wrote Ball Four during the 1969

Ball four baseball book