“This book has long been portrayed as the iconic look at what goes on in the life of a baseball player. Jim Bouton was ostracized for writing it, but to this fan who comes an entire generation late to the game, it's hard to fathom. I love what Bouton told us in the book. The personal anecdotes were great. The humor was what I expected. Baseball players have a knack for coming up with intelligent and very witty insults that don't resonate across other sports. There are plenty of those in this book.
Where the book lost me is in that it just didn't seem all that bad. For the establishment to dislike Jim Bouton for writing the book seems ludicrous. I'll admit, though, that the reason I think that way is that since the book was written, the stories and ways of life contained therein have been a part of the game. Most fans have come to expect the behavior that's in the book. And to read it almost 40 years later diluted the revelations for me. It just wasn't shocking.
In reading the 20th anniversary edition (published in 1990), I did get to take a look at Bouton after the book. His comeback in 1978 made for a good tale in the Ball Five section, and reading that he invented Big League Chew made me feel better about his plight. He always seemed to be scheming, and he finally nailed the big one with Big League Chew. Good for him and his family. He seems like a decent guy from the stories in the book, and the people that had some bone to pick with him generally were found to be frauds later in life (Pete Rose, Bowie Kuhn, Mickey Mantle), so I tend to think that Bouton really was decent.
Overall, the book was good. I got caught up in the 1969 pennant race despite knowing how it turned out, and I enjoyed the humor that I haven't been around since doing some oft he same things with my baseball teammates years ago.”
mrjerz wrote this review Monday, December 10 2007.
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