Exclusive Interview with Jim Bouton (cont.) Shawn Collins -- So, I guess you would consider yourself a Democrat? Jim Bouton -- No, not really. I voted for Ralph Nader. He's not a Democrat. SC -- So you're not affiliated then? JB -- I'm not affiliated with any party. SC -- Well then, what's your perspective on the issue of capital punishment? JB -- I'm against capital punishment. I don't see that as a Republican or a Democratic idea. I'm against it for moral and for political and for practical reasons. I think when we kill somebody, we say that it's all right to kill people under certain circumstances, because we're killing them. Everybody else is going to have their own opinion on who should be killed and who shouldn't. So it's a bad precedent, number one. Number two - once you've killed somebody -- if they really are a deranged enough person, a twisted enough person to have committed murder -- once you've killed them you've lost the opportunity to learn anything about them. SC -- OK. You've said that once in a while you tried the "greenies" (pep pills). Did you ever touch that kind of stuff after you got out of baseball? JB -- Yeah, it was when I was playing baseball. SC -- Did you ever have any bad experience with them, or any great experience? JB -- No, the experience I had with "greenies" I already wrote about in Ball Four. SC -- So that was the extent of it there? JB -- Yeah, I tried pep pills, I tried a couple of pep pills and I didn't like them. They just made me jumpy. SC -- OK, here's a little hypothetical thing for you. If your house was to catch on fire and after saving everybody, saving your loved ones . . . JB -- I'm not one for saving momentos. My trophies are in boxes. I don't live in the past; I live in the present. I'd try to grab my calendar and my laptop so I wouldn't lose my files. SC -- So you don't even wear a World Series ring or anything? JB -- No. SC -- Did you pass them on to your kids or something, or do you just have it boxed away somewhere? JB -- They're in a safety deposit box. SC -- Do you have any biggest disappointment in your life? JB -- Biggest disappointment in my life? I don't have too many disappointments. I've been very fortunate at this point. I would separate that from tragedy, including my daughter. Awful tragedy. SC -- What happened with that? JB -- Well, that's something I don't want to talk about. It's too recent and too raw. I just didn't want you to write that Jim Bouton says he doesn't have any disappointments and didn't mention his daughter. I just wouldn't put that in a disappointment category. You know what I mean? I hate to get into the notion of who's your best this and who's your best that. It's too superficial. SC -- I just thought in terms of any goals or anything. JB -- I have goals, but when I set out to do something I focus on the process, not the result. I do things for their own sake, not because what it's going to get me, how much money it might make me, or that I might win as a result of it. I do it because I want to do it. SC -- OK, so what kind of stage are you at with the screenplay that you've mentioned? JB -- Just at the treatment level. SC -- What is it going to be about? JB -- It's a romantic comedy. Page 2 of 4 Next >>