Description
Book SynopsisNamed a Best Baseball Book of 2020 by Sports Collectors Digest Bouton examines the remarkable life of a player and an author who forever changed the way we view not only sports books but professional sports as a whole.
Trade Review“Once you start reading, you will not be able to stop. A compelling look at one of the most influential and controversial figures in baseball history. A new generation needs to know the story of Jim Bouton: a man who never wearied of gleefully and hilariously skewering the establishment but who also had the old-school drive to will his dreams into reality. Above all, a lifetime love of baseball shines through in every chapter—a true reflection of Bouton himself.”—Brian Kenny, host for MLB Network and author of
Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution"Baseball fans will laugh alongside and, ultimately, feel touched by this look at an iconoclastic, often quixotic man who, despite the charges that his landmark book had hurt the game, loved baseball to the very end."—
Library Journal, starred review
"An astute writer on the game, [Nathanson] is as at his best on the Bouton-Shecter collaboration—late nights at the Lion’s Head Bar in Greenwich Village; Shecter making sense of Bouton’s scrawls on stationery, envelopes and toilet paper; the pair noodling over the manuscript stripped down to their underwear in Shecter’s airless Chelsea apartment. . . . Nathanson is good, too, with Bouton wisecracks."—Maxwell Carter,
Wall Street Journal"When Mitchell Nathanson, a professor of sports law at Villanova, approached Bouton about writing his biography, the pitcher gave his blessing, on one condition: that Nathanson write about him with the honesty he’d tried to bring to the game of baseball. . . . Nathanson moves crisply through the deep back story, though he knows a good detail when he sees one."—John Swansburg,
New York Times Book Review"Nathanson goes beyond tracing Bouton’s life, focusing instead on explicating the roots of
Ball Four. In so doing, the book becomes an inside-publishing exposé, showing how the publication and selling of
Ball Four changed our expectations of what a sports book could be. . . . In addition, the book provides fascinating details about Bouton's post–
Ball Four life, including his fling at acting and his turn as an entrepreneur, developing the successful bubble-gum product Big League Chew. A welcome look at one of baseball's signature mavericks."—Mark Levine,
Booklist"Nathanson's chronicle of baseball's renowned counter-culture renegade as author of
Ball Four in 1970 is a masterful exploration of Jim Bouton's impact not only to major-league baseball but also within the larger societal spheres of the overall sports industry and American culture in general."—Charlie Bevis,
Bevis Baseball Research"
Bouton: The Life of a Baseball Original is one of the best baseball biographies in recent memory. Nathanson is a fantastic storyteller, capable of juxtaposing Bouton's recollections with those of his contemporaries and situating these stories within their historical context. While researching the book, he spent a significant amount of time with Bouton in the final years of his life (Bouton died in 2019), which contributes to the depth with which he renders his subject."—Clayton Trutor,
Reason"B
outon is a book that deserves space next to
Ball Four on the bookshelf. Nathanson has done a thorough job of presenting the life of a complex man who changed the game of baseball, not by what he did on the field, but what he observed on the field, in the clubhouse and on the road."—Bob D'Angelo, S
ports Bookie"A well-researched and fascinating read that tells how the free thinking Bouton always marched to the beat of his own drummer."—John Werner, Waco Tribune-Herald
"Nathanson's source list is deep and insightful and his writing is crisp. And his access to Bouton's
Ball Four notes provides answers to some lingering questions."—Dennis Star,
Peoria Journal StarTable of ContentsAcknowledgments
Prologue: Publication Day
Part One: The Bulldog
1. Warm-up Bouton
2. Take a Hike, Son
3. Joliet
4. You Should Write a Book
5. A Long Way from Amarillo
6. Fucking Shecter
7. All ’Bout Bouton
8. A Threat, Not a Fine
9. The Bulldog and the Chipmunks
10. Rebel without a Fastball
11. The Youth of America Is for Kids
12. The End of the Line
Part Two: The Author
13. Beginnings
14. From Tell-Some to Tell-All
15. Take Your Pants Off, Bouton
16. Fuck You, Shakespeare
17. Protectors of the Holy Flame
18. Against the Unwritten Rules of Baseball
19. Not Enough Sex
20. The Leni Riefenstahl of the National Football League
21. Taking It Personally
22. Bad Stuff ’bout the Mets
Part Three: The Iconoclast
23. Not Selling Refrigerators
24. The Most Famous Vasectomy in New York
25. Are We Rolling?
26. One Smart-Ass and Four Lawyers
27. You’re a Long Time Dead
28. The Battered Bastard of Baseball
29. Gilligan’s Island in Baseball Suits
30. Too Old, Too Everything
31. Magic
32. Dreaming in Baseball
33. Mask of the Bulldog
34. Hey, New York—Bouton’s Back!
35. Lightning in a Pouch
36. The Solo Artist
37. Laurie
38. Existential Bad Faith
39. A Mile in Bowie’s Shoes
40. Cashing Out
41. The Butter-Yellow Box
Epilogue: The Cool of the Evening
Notes
Bibliography
Index
