Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics)

by Jim Bouton

  Bruce Henry, the Yankee road secretary, is one of my main men. He hated to buy bats for me. He always claimed I didn’t need them. When he finally did, he had them inscribed not with my name, but my batting average—.092. And once when I complained that the people I’d given passes to were upset about getting poor seats, he said, “How’d they like the price?”

  Wayne Comer says that Mayo Smith, the Tiger manager, once said to him, “Wayne, I think you’re going to hit .290 this year—but you’re going to be doing it in Montgomery, Alabama.”

  I am reminded that not long ago I ran into Bob Smith of the old “Howdy Doody” show at a Rexall in Ft. Lauderdale, and was able to sing to him the Howdy Doody theme song at the toothpaste counter:

  It’s Howdy Doody time,

  It’s Howdy Doody time,

  Bob Smith and Howdy too,

  Say Howdy do to you.

  Let’s give a rousing cheer,

  Cause Howdy Doody’s here.

  It’s time to start the show,

  So kids, let’s go!

  Bob Smith went out of his gourd.

  I also count myself as having a rather large store of answers to trivia questions.

  Q. Who was the dog and who was the villain in Rootie Kazootie?

  A. Galapoochie Pup and Poison Sumac.

  The end of spring training always brings out the best in me.

  APRIL

  6

  We played Vancouver before coming here to play San Diego a doubleheader for our last two exhibition games. I pitched two innings in the first game and gave up two runs. My arm felt good but I had poor control of my knuckleball. I asked Maglie if there was a chance I could get some more work in the second game. He said no. His reason was that they still had a couple of minor-league pitchers to look at. I said hell, I thought the team was set, and why didn’t he ask Joe if he could squeeze me in. But he wouldn’t. So I went to Joe. At the precise moment I started to explain why I thought I needed more work, Joe Schultz took a huge bite out of the liverwurst sandwich he was eating, got up off his stool, went to the Coke machine and mumbled something to me through his full mouth and over his shoulder. I didn’t pitch. That’s how I know what he said.

  Part 3

  And Then I Died

  APRIL

  7

  Seattle

  Today, the day before opening day, Joe Schultz said, “Well, it’s back to the old salt mine, boys.”

  Later he encountered Tommy Davis and asked if that was “an old Budweiser” he was pouring down. “No, a Coke,” Davis said.

  And Joe Schultz said, “That’s not too good for the old stomacho.”

  Joe Schultz calls Jose Vidal “Chico,” which is Spanish for “boy.”

  APRIL

  8

  Anaheim

  Opening day—or Opening Day. Depending on how you feel about it.

  I got a wire from Toots Shor in Anaheim before the game. It said, “Good luck, Jim. I hope you pitch often and win many games.” Who says Toots never talks to has-beens?

  Actually I don’t know Toots that well. I’ve been in his place a few times and once when I was going bad he told me my whole problem was that I was striding three inches too far and if I just shortened up on the stride by those three inches everything would be fine. I was so desperate I actually tried it. It didn’t help.

  Everyone works out pregame nervousness in his own way. Tommy Davis was standing in the middle of the clubhouse taking a hitting stance with no bat in his hands, anticipating the pitch, striding into it, checking his swing and then going back and doing it all over again. It reminded me of a guy going over his notes just before a final exam, knowing all the time it wasn’t going to do any good. If you don’t have it by now, Tom, you’re not going to.

  There was a lot of grousing about the uniforms. It isn’t only that they don’t fit (no baseball uniforms fit, possibly because you are carefully measured for them). It’s that they’re so gaudy. I guess because we’re the Pilots we have to have captain’s uniforms. They have stripes on the sleeves, scrambled eggs on the peak of the cap and blue socks with yellow stripes. Also there are blue and yellow stripes down the sides of the pants. We look like goddam clowns. The only worse-looking uniforms are the ones they wear in Vancouver.

  Naturally we won the first game. Beat the Angels 4–3. Mike Hegan hit the first home run for the Pilots and Joe Schultz, jumping up and down in the dugout, clapped his hands and actually yelled, “Hurray for our team.”

  When we came into the clubhouse, all of us yelling and screaming like a bunch of high school kids, Joe Schultz said, “Stomp on ’em. Thataway to stomp on ’em. Kick ’em when they’re down. Shitfuck. Stomp them. Stomp them good.”

  Already we’re better than the Mets.

  APRIL

  9

  Made my pitching debut today. Threw two fastballs to Hoyt Wilhelm, the elderly knuckleball pitcher who may one day be my idol. Got him out.

  It took about a day into the season for us to be like every other ballclub, not just an expansion team full of strangers. I’m going out after the ballgame and have a few beers with the guys, maybe six or seven, which makes me blind. There is unquestionably a close feeling among the guys who go out and drink because they hash over the ballgame and it gives us all a feeling of common purpose. Slogan: The team that drinks together stays together.

  Other things that draw a team together:

  You’re riding down the street in the team bus and you see a guy walking along with a big beer belly and his pants hanging below it and you say, “Mincher in ten years.”

  Or a guy is hanging on to a lamppost, a wino in a drunken stupor, severely defeated by life. “That’s what happens when you can’t hit the curve ball.”

  Marty Pattin does a pretty good Donald Duck. Before he pitched the opener he was going around the clubhouse saying in Donald Duck that you got to be loose, quack, you got to be loose. He was whistling in the dark. Later I found out he’d gone to bed at seven the night before and stayed in bed until noon. That’s seventeen hours. I wonder if he got any sleep.

  Today Joe Schultz said to the clean-shaven Rocky Bridges, Los Angeles coach, “Hey Rocky, how’s your old mustache?”

  Joe Schultz also said to Lou Johnson of the Angels, a man whom disaster has robbed of a piece of his left ear, “Hey, what’s new, Half-Ear?”

  Add to the saga of Mike Marshall: The other day he had a blister on his hand and the trainer told him the best way to help it was to keep it soaked in a cup of strong tea. A lot of guys would have told the trainer to shove the tea up his bippy, but Mike took the advice. Now he was walking around with his hand in a cup of tea—on the bus, in the clubhouse, sitting on the bench during the game and in his hotel room. So his roommate, John Kennedy, told everybody he had a nut for a roommate. Tea all over the goddam room. Even in his bed.

  That’s the way you become a nut. You have guts enough to walk around all day with your hand in a cup of tea.

  APRIL

  10

  A few more words about Eddie O’Brien and Ron Plaza. O’Brien is one of the fairly famous basketball O’Brien twins who played with Seattle from ’49 to ’53. Actually his job is athletic director at Seattle University, but he had four years in the big leagues with the Pirates—as infielder and pitcher—and now he’s here as a friend of management (or because his brother is in city government) to get his fifth year in on the pension plan. You only need four now, but Eddie’s after five and no one’s going to stop him.

  Plaza was a coach under Schultz in Atlanta when it was still a minor-league city, and that’s one of the ways you get to be a coach in the big leagues.

  Coaches have little real responsibility, so it seems to me they should, at the very least, try to help club morale—cheer guys onward and upward, make jokes and smooth out little problems before they become big ones.

  O’Brien and Plaza are officious types, though, and cause more trouble than they smooth over. And because they try to find things to d
o they become nothing but annoyances. Like O’Brien will say to Jack Aker, “Jack, you’re in the bullpen tonight.” Jack has been in the bullpen for eight years.

  Another example: It is customary for players to pair off and throw easily on the sidelines before a workout or a game. So as I reached into the ballbag to grab some baseballs for the guys, Plaza said, “What are you going to do with those baseballs, Bouton?”

  “I’m just going to take three or four out to the field because a few guys asked me to.”

  “Just take one.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Steve Barber was in the diathermy machine again, all day, and I asked him again how it felt. “Better,” he said, “fine, great. It just bothers me a little until I get loose and then there’s no sweat.” It’s killing him. He hasn’t been able to pick up a baseball and he was supposed to start today and didn’t.

  Standing around the outfield the conversation turned to religion. Don Mincher said he came from a very religious home and used to go to church every Sunday where people did things like roll in the aisles. He said there was a big circle of numbers on the church wall and when your number came up with somebody else’s number you had to visit them and have a prayer meeting. As he got older Minch would say, “Well, let’s have a few beers first.” They didn’t think that was very religious of him.

  This afternoon Gary Bell and I went to Pershing Square (in Los Angeles) to listen to some of the old ladies in sneakers tell us to be prepared to meet our maker. I confess I enjoy rapping with them and usually wind up assured that eternal salvation is beyond my reach.

  Later on we came across a group that was into the Indian thing and they were chanting Hari Krishna Rama Rama, etc., and I got to talking to one of them, who said that their religion simply was to reaffirm love of God regardless of the particular religion, and I thought that was fair enough and we hung around enjoying the chanting and sitar music.

  Then a priest, probably about fifty-five years old, happened by and got into conversation with one of the group. When he left I asked what it was about. “He said this was a religion that didn’t belong in this country,” the young man said. “He said we already had enough religions in this country and that we should go back to India or wherever it was we came from.”

  Going over the hitters is something you do before each series, and before we went against the mighty Angels, Sal Maglie had a great hint for one of their weaker hitters, Vic Davalillo. “Knock him down, then put the next three pitches knee-high on the outside corner, boom, boom, boom, and you’ve got him.”

  Everybody laughed. If you could throw three pitches, boom, boom, boom, knee-high on the outside corner, you wouldn’t have to knock anybody down. It’s rather like telling somebody if he’d just slam home those ninety-foot putts he’d win the tournament easily.

  APRIL

  11

  Seattle

  Home again at Sicks’ Stadium, graveyard for pitchers, home-run heaven, the major leagues. The clubhouse is small and crowded and there’s no rug, just rubber runners on the cement floor and the lockers are small and close together, and there was a lot of grousing about it, and Joe Schultz said, “It’s just like the old winter league. You’ve got to follow the crowd.”

  Gary Bell pitched and beat the White Sox, 7–0. Mincher hit two home runs. Tomorrow the world.

  APRIL

  12

  Before today’s game Joe Schultz said, “Okay men, up and at ’em. Get that old Budweiser.”

  APRIL

  13

  Pitched against the Chicago White Sox today and got bombed. Three runs in an inning-and-a-third. My knuckleball just doesn’t seem to be ready yet. I can’t get it over the plate consistently, and when I get behind I have to come in with my fastball, which somehow isn’t too fast. So I got ripped for long hits, including one Don Pavletich hit over the left-field wall.

  There were other problems. Pete Ward’s a left-handed hitter and I threw him a knuckler that was about a foot off the ground, outside. This is the kind of pitch he should have missed by a foot if he swung but he followed it all the way and belted it deep to center. It was caught against the wall, but it scored a run from third and I was damn relieved it didn’t go out. That he was able to hit it at all is an indication that I wasn’t throwing the knuckleball hard enough, probably because I was so worried about getting it over.

  Pavletich hit a fastball, the first pitch I threw, and I thought, “Jesus, I didn’t even get a chance to throw him a knuckler.” It was supposed to set him up. So much for setting people up with my fastball, Sal Maglie, you fink. As soon as he hit it I said to myself, “Oh Christ, what a way to start. It’s going to be a long time before I’m in there again.” And I wondered how many innings I’d have to pitch in order to redeem myself and whether I’d be coming to bat in the next inning (sure enough) and subject to being pulled for a pinch hitter (and I was).

  We were behind like 4–0 when I came in and 7–0 when I left, and I have to admit I didn’t cry when the other guys got clobbered too. You stand out less in a crowd.

  After five games, our record is 3 wins and 2 losses. And we’ve scored a lot of runs. The team looks good. Tommy Harper is doing a helluva job at second base and I thought he’d be one of our weak spots. Ray Oyler’s been fine at short and we’ve had some outstanding catches in the outfield. Third place doesn’t look impossible. And if you don’t count me, our pitching looks pretty good. Except for Steve Barber. Joe Schultz is upset with Barber because he has a sore arm. It’s not as unusual as it sounds. Managers get angry at injuries. An injury is beyond a manager’s control and he doesn’t like anything he can’t control. So if you’re out too long with an injury he gets angry at you. The logic is almost perfect.

  Johnny Keane was particularly prone to this kind of thinking. I remember going to Joe Soares, the Yankee trainer, and telling him my arm was bothering me and that I probably shouldn’t throw and suggesting that he tell Keane.

  “You tell him,” Joe said. “The last time I told him anything he chewed my head off.”

  A kid named Tom Berg, who belongs to the Seattle organization and goes to school here, came over to work out with the club. And before the workout he was in the clubhouse shaving off his nice long sideburns. He got the word that Dewey Soriano, who is the president of the club, thought he would look better with shorter sideburns. Well, I think Dewey Soriano would look better if he lost weight.

  I’m not getting enough pitching in, even as a short man, which is what I guess they’ve decided I am (although why they would want to bring in a knuckleballer with men on base, I can’t understand). I need lots of work on my knuckleball and I’m not getting it. My other pitches aren’t that bad, except they don’t get anybody out, so I’m going to concentrate on the knuckleball. Last summer I threw to a catcher for about fifteen minutes every day, just knuckleballs, and if I was needed that night, I could still pitch. But Sal is not very enthusiastic. A couple of times I’ve asked him if I could warm up and he said, “You’ve been throwing the whole damn day.” He was referring to the fact that I had played catch in the outfield before the game. The man’s got big eyes.

  The trouble is that coaches and managers have a thing about being strong for the ballgame. They don’t realize that sometimes you can be too strong—sacrifice sharpness for strength. With a knuckleball, this can be particularly costly. I’ve tried to talk to Sal about this. I say, “Sal, I’d like to talk about my knuckleball.”

  And he snaps, “What?” and he’s already looking at something over my shoulder. My impulse is to say that my Aunt Frances has a great knuckleball and would he like to give her a look. But when Sal snaps, “What?” he gives you the impression he doesn’t want such a long answer.

  If he had a liverwurst sandwich I’d expect him to take a big bite.

  With Hovley gone, Mike Marshall is probably the most articulate guy on the club, so I asked him if he had as much trouble communicating as I’ve had and he said, “Of course. The minute I appr
oach a coach or a manager I can see the terror in his eyes. Lights go on, bells start clanging. What’s it going to be? What’s this guy want from me? Why can’t he be like everybody else and not bother me? It’s almost impossible to carry on a conversation or get a direct answer to a direct question.”

  In baseball they say, “He’s a great guy. Never says a word.”

  Like a lot of players, Jack Aker chews tobacco. But he’s only been at it for two years and doesn’t do it well. Hasn’t learned to spit properly. As a result his uniform is always covered with brown spots.

  All people who chew tobacco should have happen to them what happened to Steve Hamilton of the Yankees. Steve is an ace with chewing tobacco. Most players chew only on the field, Hamilton even chews at home and has a spittoon in the middle of his living-room floor. He says he also has a wife, which I don’t altogether believe. Anyway he got careless once while pitching in Kansas City. He swallowed his chaw. So he turned around and gave it up, along with his cookies, on the back of the mound. In front of all those people.

  I’ve felt like that on the mound too, and I don’t even chew tobacco.

  APRIL

  14

  I died tonight.

  I got sent to Vancouver.

  My first reaction: Outrage.

  Second reaction: Omigod! How am I going to tell Bobbie? The problems. Where to live? How to get rid of the place we’d already signed a lease on in Seattle? What would happen to the $650 deposit? Moving again. Again. And we just got here.

  But mostly outrage.

  We’d lost a 2–1 game to Kansas City when Sal came over and said, “Joe wants to see you in his office.”

  My heart started racing. I mean Joe never wants to see me anywhere. So I knew. At the same time I thought, “Nah. It’s too early. I’ve really only pitched the once. How can they tell anything from that? Maybe it’s a trade? Or maybe he’s just sore at something I’ve done. Let’s see, what have I done lately?”