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 Ball Four (Twentieth Anniversary Edition) preface:
I don't believe I could have produced the response (to Ball Four) if I had set out to do it. In fact, twenty years ago when I submitted the final manuscript I was not optimistic. My editor, Lenny Shecter, and I had spent so many months rewriting and polishing that after awhile it all seemed like cardboard to us.
What's more, the World Publishing Company wasn't too excited either. They doubted there was any market for a diary by a marginal relief pitch on an expansion team called the Seattle Pilots.
With a first printing of only 5,000 copies I was certain Ball Four was headed the way of all sports books. And then a funny thing happened. Some advance excerpts appeared in Look Magazine and the baseball establishment went crazy.
The team owners became furious and wanted to ban the book. The Commissioner, Bowie "Ayatollah" Kuhn, called me in for a reprimand and announced that I had done the game, "a grave disservice."
Enjoy the advance excerpts that helped make Ball Four a legendary book.
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My Love/Hate Affair with Baseball
Ex-Yankee star Jim Bouton's sizzling diary
Excerpts from Look Magazine (June 2, 1970)
November 15, 1968
I signed my contract today to play for the new expansion-born Seattle Pilots at a salary of $22,000. It was a letdown because there was no bargaining. In the old days, before I became a 30-year old veteran trying to hold on with a knuckleball, a freaky pitch that is almost as difficult to throw as it is to catch, signing a contract was a yearly adventure.
The biggest adventure came in the spring of 1964, after I'd won 21 games for the New York Yankees with an overpowering fast ball. I'd taken down a big $10,500 for that bit of work and was determined to get $20,000. The man I dealt with was Ralph Houk, the manager, who was then in his brief time as general manager.
He offered me $15,500. Houk can look as sincere as hell with those big blue eyes of his, and when he calls you "ponder," it's hard to argue with him. He said the reason he was willing to give me such a big raise right off was that he wanted to give me a top salary, more than any second-year pitcher had ever made with the Yankees, and forget it.
"How many guys have you had who won 21 games in their second year?" I asked him.
He said he didn't know. And despite all the "ponders," I didn't sign.
This was around January 15. I didn't hear from Houk again until two weeks before spring training, when he came up another thousand. This was definitely final.
I said it wasn't final for me, I wanted $20,000.
"You can't make twenty," Houk said. "We never double contracts. It's a rule."
It's a rule he made up right there, I'd bet. Once again, I didn't sign.
The day before spring training, Houk offered me $18,500. I told him I might have considered signing for that, except the Yankees had forced me to work for so little the year before that it had become a matter of principle. The Yankees had their rules, I had my principles.
Two weeks into spring training, I was still a holdout and enjoying every minute of it. The phone never stopped ringing, and I was busy explaining to reporters all around the country why I was holding out, giving them all the figures.
I don't think Houk liked that. Anyway, on March 8, he called me and said he was going to deduct $100 a day from his offer for every day I held out beyond March 10. It amounted to a fine for not signing. "Oh no, it's not a fine," Houk said. "I don't believe in fining people."
Frantic, I called Joe Cronin, president of the American League. Could Houk legally fine me that way? Cronin said, "Walk around the block, then go back in and talk some more." With that encouragement, I chickened out. I signed.
I shouldn't have. If I held out, I probably would have gotten my figure. I could tell from the negative reaction Houk got in the press. And I got a lot of letters from distinguished citizens and season-ticket holders, all of them outraged at Houk. I think that's when Ralph Houk started hating me.
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