Ball Four Plus Ball Five by Jim Bouton (1980)
from the book cover

Ten years have passed since Jim Bouton's Ball Four became the largest selling sports book of all time. Referred to simply as "The Book" (aka "That Book") in the sports world, it has become an American classic more famous than the players it talked about.

Ball Four is not only the most incisive, most candid, and most revealing book ever written about the national game, it is also the funniest book ever written. Among other things, it talks about "beaver shooting" (very scientific girl watching), baseball "annies" (groupies), stars hitting home runs with hangovers, and what the ballplayers really say in the dugouts and locker rooms.

Ball Four was the first book to tell the truth about professional sports, so naturally it was blasted by the establishment. The fans loved it, however, and serious critics called it an important document. It was also very popular among women and non-fans, because in the final analysis, Ball Four is not a book about baseball, but about people who happen to be baseball players.

Because the demand has far exceeded the supply, Ball Four is now back in a permanent cloth edition, with new chapters on Bouton's life since he left baseball and a special section on "The Boys of Ball Four." Readers will find out what his old teammates are doing now, what it's like to make a movie with Elliot Gould and Robert Altman, and how television is really made.

Bouton talks about the time he starred in and wrote (and rewrote) his own situation comedy. As he says, "If TV executives had The Old Man and the Sea as a property, they'd say to the author, Ernie, we love it. But the part about the fish is boring. And the man is too old. He should have a girlfriend." Read about his unprecedented comback to the big leagues (and why he didn't go back again), and his hilarious summer in the minors with the Class A Portland Mavericks, where players insulted pedestrians over a special loudspeaker on the team's renowned red bus. On the serious side, there is his search for himself and the breakup of his marriage.

With the same sensitivity, humor, and pith that made Ball Four a classic, Jim Bouton tells the story of his life after baseball, as a writer, actor, television personality, and inventor of a million-dollar chewing gum idea.

Take a look at these other Jim Bouton books:

Ball Four 1970

Ball Four Plus Ball Five (1980)

Ball Four: Twentieth Anniversary Edition (1990)

Strike Zone

I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally

I Managed Good, But Boy Did They Play Bad