He was a successful baseball pitcher for a brief time, then became an author who pretty much single-handedly transformed sports literature from a form of hagiography to the realistic modern mode. In so doing, he made himself an outcast among the players and management. He also annoyed many fans who preferred their heroes untarnished.
MLB sums it up as follows: “The irreverent diary of his 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros featured tales of players’ antics and adolescent behavior, sexual activities, sexually tasteless jokes, drunken horseplay, contract squabbles with management in the era before free agency, and the use of performance-enhancing drugs — yes, even way back then — that enraged the baseball establishment.”
Bouton became famous and notorious for his life off the field. In addition to being an influential and controversial author, he even had a brief career as a film actor. Bouton played the bad guy in The Long Goodbye, a major film directed by the legendary Robert Altman.
Bouton was also a damned good pitcher before he threw his arm out. That took only two years, but what years they were! In 1963 he went 21-7 with a 2.53 ERA, and he followed that up with 18 wins and a 3.02 ERA in 1964. His Yankees lost the World Series in each of those seasons, but Bouton himself was brilliant in both Octobers. His post-season ERA was below 2.00 in both seasons, and in 1964 he won both of his World Series starts.
Because of his arm troubles, that was basically his entire career. He would never again win more than four games in a baseball season, but he was still at it 14 years later because he kept unretiring in the hope of a comeback.
RIP. Ball Four was a big part of my adolescence.