Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics)

by Jim Bouton

  I wonder how he is with the pitchers.

  The big confrontation is coming closer. The Yankees will be in town in a couple of days and I’ve been invited to appear at the sportswriters and sportscasters dinner on Monday afternoon. The idea is us against them. Mel Stottlemyre for the Yankees, me for the Pilots. I hope I can pitch against the Senators before the Yankees get here so I can show Joe Schultz how ready I am. I’m scared stiff the Yankees will get away without me pitching against them. At the same time I’d hate to get into one of those lost-cause games against them. I want them when they can feel the game in their guts.

  MAY

  10

  Big meeting today. The way it happened, Marvin Milkes has been reading in the papers that some of the players aren’t happy. So he suggested to Jack Aker that a meeting be called so the players could air their gripes. At the meeting, which lasted about twenty minutes, there were complaints about the beds in some of the hotels, the lack of a roof over the bench in the bullpen, the bare cement floor in the clubhouse and the absence of a water cooler in the clubhouse. Imagine having to take our greenies with beer. Big things like that.

  It was also pointed out that when an exhibition game is scheduled for a Monday at the end of a road trip (as several are), the players should be permitted to go home Sunday night for at least a half-day at home. (This led to a certain amount of hilarity. The suggestions were that a half-day at home is just enough, or too much, and that a better place to spend the half-day was Las Vegas.) My gripe was that I thought that any ball hit into the yellow seats in left field should be a ground-rule double instead of a home run.

  My own belief about the whole thing is that the players have only one serious gripe—the behavior of the coaches. But since they were all sitting right there no one complained.

  When the meeting was over Aker asked Gary Bell what he thought about it all and he said, “Smoke him inside.” Gary Bell is a beautiful man.

  The sad truth about baseball, I’m afraid, is that there is not enough in it to occupy a man’s mind. In desperation they turn to insignificant things and blow them up. Example: It was cold in the bullpen tonight, so I ran into the clubhouse and picked up three parkas. While I was at it I asked Curt Rayer, the trainer, if he could get some handwarmers going for us. Later, Larry Haney came out of the clubhouse and gave me a hot-water bottle he’d hidden under his jacket.

  “Thanks,” I said. “How come you had to smuggle it?”

  “Curt didn’t want any of the coaches seeing a hot-water bottle come out here,” Haney said.

  After the game Curt said I had bugged out at least half the coaching staff. Ron Plaza had overheard me asking for handwarmers and he told Curt it wasn’t cold enough for them, and then somebody, maybe Joe Schultz, had said, “The hell with it, no handwarmers.” Curt said everybody was very upset that I should ask for them, so he’d sent out a quiet hot-water bottle. It had been a warm day, so I guess the idea of handwarmers in May boggled the little minds.

  This reminded me of something that happened the other day. Joe Schultz called me over and I thought he wanted to talk about my knuckleball, or pitching in general, or perhaps the state of the nation. Instead, with a straight face, he asked me whether I had any light-colored sweatshirts or did I have only the dark kind I was wearing. I told him I had about fifteen dark sweatshirts since the other clubs I had been with all had dark blue sweatshirts. I said I used the dark ones in practice before the game, then changed to the Pilots’ light blue for the game.

  He considered that for a while, then finally nodded and said, “I guess that’s okay.”

  Joe Schultz has yet to say a word to me about my knuckleball. Not even, “I guess that’s okay.”

  I don’t suppose I should care about any of this, except it is important to me to have a warm hand when I throw the knuckler. But even if I didn’t need it, why should anybody care that I wanted it? And I would like to think that Joe Schultz has more important things to think about than the color of my sweatshirt.

  At the meeting before the ballgame Sal Maglie said, “Okay, let’s get some runs.” He was kidding. We’ve been scoring a fantastic number of runs, which is either a tribute to our hitters or the size of this ballpark. Tonight, for example, we were losing to the Senators 11–3 in the sixth inning. First we came back to tie it, then we won 16–13. We ran through the whole pitching staff and only Gary Bell and I came out with any glory. I had a wicked knuckleball.

  At one point, with a man on first, as I was about to release the ball, Ron Plaza yelled, “Throw it to first!” It disconcerted me enough so that the pitch was way off the plate. My impulse was to warn Plaza not to yell at me once I had released the resin bag and to shove those handwarmers up his bippy. But I managed to contain it.

  Bell pitched the ninth inning and got them out. It was a minor miracle because he’s supposed to pitch tomorrow and ran fifteen wind sprints before the game and ate three sandwiches in the fourth inning. When he came into the clubhouse in the seventh to put on his supporter he asked no one in particular if it was too late to take a greenie.

  How fabulous are greenies? Some of the guys have to take one just to get their hearts to start beating. I’ve taken greenies but I think Darrell Brandon is right when he says that the trouble with them is that they make you feel so great that you think you’re really smoking the ball even when you’re not. They give you a false sense of security. The result is that you get gay, throw it down the middle and get clobbered.

  During the game the public-address announcer explained where to pick up the ballots to vote for “your favorite Pilot.” I thought it necessary to remind the people sitting near the bullpen that your favorite Pilot did not necessarily have to be good.

  The Yankees have lost thirteen out of fourteen now and I feel so bad about it I walk around laughing. Actually I just say that. In fact I’m beginning to feel sorry for some of the guys. The guy I care most about is Fritz Peterson, and he’s doing well. He won the only game they won in the last ten days.

  I’m still not sure about the Pilots. Sometimes I think the pitching staff can develop enough to help. Other times it looks like a bad staff. I sometimes think that a Marty Pattin should be able to win twenty and then I realize he’s going to have all the ups and downs new pitchers in the big league are prone to. The same with Mike Marshall. He pitches a good game and they expect a lot of him. But what the hell, if he wins ten games he’ll be doing great.

  The other starters don’t look so good. Gary is not really ready yet, and neither is Brabender. Barber has been taking cortisone shots in that elbow that hasn’t bothered him all spring and he can’t lift a baseball, much less comb his hair. Maybe Joe Schultz will consider me as a starter. If he started me in two or three games I might surprise him. But I think Sal has drummed it into his head that I can’t be any good throwing the knuckleball all the time. My only chance is if they get desperate.

  More baseball-player paranoia. First guy up in the bullpen today was Jack Aker. Second guy to go in was O’Donoghue. Then me. When O’Donoghue was called in, Darrell Brandon said, “That does it. I’ll never go into that trainer’s room again.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because I was getting diathermy on this stiff neck I got and Joe Schultz spotted me and asked if I was all right. I said yeah, I was okay, but he probably thinks there’s something seriously wrong with me. That’s what I get for going into that goddam room.”

  MAY

  11

  With the Yankees coming in I’m beginning to feel like it’s World Series time, my own personal World Series. I started out thinking that I was going to come in in the ninth inning and strike out the side, or start a game and pitch nine, but right now I don’t care about winning or losing. I just don’t want to embarrass myself.

  Frank Howard drove in five runs with two home runs and a single against us and we beat the Senators anyway, 6–5. It was three straight over them, but all I got out of the evening was a marvelous nickname gi
ven to Frank Bertaina, a pitcher, by Moe Drabowsky, also a pitcher, when they were with Baltimore. Bertaina, Drabowsky decided, was not too smart, and was flaky besides. So Drabowsky called him “Toys in the Attic.”

  This is the kind of nickname that could be turned around into an offensive weapon. There may be no bigger flake in organized baseball than Drabowsky. Once, out in the bullpen in Anaheim, he picked up the phone, called a number in Hong Kong and ordered a Chinese dinner. To go.

  Brabender was the pitcher tonight and he looked pretty good giving up two runs before tiring in the fifth. He was throwing the ball good and I think he’s coming around. On the other hand, there’s the continuing sad saga of Steve Barber. The only thing he’s done lately is pull a hamstring while running in the outfield. So now, as he gets diathermy on his shoulder, he gets icepacks on his leg. He says he feels fine, except for a little tightness in his shoulder.

  The story on him, I understand through the grapevine, is that he was asked to go to the minors until he’s ready to pitch. As an eight-year man, however, he had the right to refuse, and did. He can be sold or traded to another major league team or given his release. That’s all. And since they paid $175,000 for him in the expansion draft Barber will no doubt be around until he’s able to pitch enough batting practice to get his arm in shape enough to pitch. I’m not sure I’d do the same in Barber’s place. On the other hand, I’m not sure I wouldn’t.

  My taste in clothing is, I’m afraid, conservative. Tonight, though, I did show up in a rather mod outfit and John Kennedy said, “Hey, look at Bouton. He’s getting there.”

  Maybe so. But I told him it’s taking me so long to get there that by the time I do, everybody will be someplace else.

  MAY

  12

  The first thing I felt when the Yankees showed up at the park today was embarrassment. That’s because our uniforms look so silly with that technicolor gingerbread all over them. The Yankee uniforms, even their gray traveling uniforms, are beautiful in their simplicity. John O’Donoghue said that when Johnny Blanchard was traded to Kansas City he refused to come out of the dugout wearing that green and gold uniform. I would guess it’s the only feeling I’ve ever had in common with Blanchard. At any rate, Blanchard never came out except to play the game, but I steeled myself and ran over to chat with the guys. There were a lot of visitors—Crosetti, Hegan, Kennedy, me. There was a lot of kidding and a lot of laughing, and this was one time Crosetti didn’t feel it necessary to enforce the rule against fraternization.

  Then the game. It was fantastic, unbelievable and altogether splendid. We scored seven runs in the first inning and made them look like a high school team. They threw to the wrong bases. Their uniforms looked great; they looked terrible.

  It reached the point where we were going nuts in the bullpen, jumping up and down and screaming and hollering. And suddenly I wasn’t embarrassed by my uniform, I was embarrassed for the Yankees. They looked so terrible. Cheez, I wanted to beat them bad, but this was ridiculous. Seven runs. I wound up telling the guys to sit down and cool it.

  It was not a cool night, though. A big fight, two benches and two bullpens empty and fifty guys milling around on the field. What a lovely war. It started when Marty Pattin threw one over Murcer’s head. In his previous at-bat Murcer had hit a home run, and that sort of thing will sometimes result. So Murcer got on base and then came in high on Oyler, head first and fists flying.

  The rule is that you’re not allowed to just sit there when your teammates are in a fight, so everybody came off the bench and out of the bullpen and the only guy who sat there was Crosetti. I guess he was paralyzed by the choices involved. Too bad. I was hoping he might mix it with The Chicken Colonel and maybe they’d both get spiked or something.

  I was very careful to keep a big smile on my face when I reached the scene of action. I didn’t want anybody to think I was angry or serious. By and large nobody is serious about these baseball fights, except the two guys who start them. Everyone else tries to pull them apart and before long you’ve got twenty or thirty guys mostly just pulling and shoving each other. The two guys who started it have so many guys piled on top of them they couldn’t reach for a subway token, much less fight.

  At the bottom of the pile Murcer and Oyler found themselves pinned motionless, nose to nose. “Ray, I’m sorry,” Murcer said. “I lost my head.”

  “That’s okay,” Oyler said. “Now how about getting off me, you’re crushin’ my leg.”

  “I would,” Murcer said, “but I can’t move.”

  There are a few guys on the Yankees I knew would love to have a shot at me, especially Fred Talbot, who I don’t think would know the meaning of the word quit if he ever got into a fight with me. So I kept one eye out for Fred and the other for my friend Fritz Peterson.

  I sort of circled the perimeter of action with both arms out to fend off any blind-siders and here came Fritz running toward me. He was laughing his head off and we grabbed each other and started waltzing like a couple of bears. He tried to throw me off balance and I tried to wrestle him down and all the time we were kidding each other.

  “How’s your wife?” I said. “Give me a fake punch to the ribs.”

  “She’s fine,” he said. “You can punch me in the stomach. Not too hard.”

  Finally he got me down and we started rolling around. Two umpires came running over and told us to break it up. “But we’re only kidding,” I said, protesting. “We’re old roommates.”

  “Break it up anyway,” the umpire said. Which made me think that here are two of four umpires breaking up a playful little wrestling match while there’s a war going on nearby with 40 guys piled on each other. I guess they both recognized that they were in a very safe place.

  After the game Fritz and I went out to dinner and I asked him what he would have done if Talbot or somebody else from the Yankees came over to help him out.

  “I’d have had to tackle the guy,” Peterson said.

  The most interesting thing about the fight was Houk’s reaction to the police, who came on the field to break it up. When he saw them he went out of his skull. “What the hell are cops doing on the field?” he shouted. “I’ve never seen cops on the field before. They ought to be at the university where they belong.”

  What he didn’t understand, of course, is that the very thing that made him angry at the sight of cops is the same thing that puts kids uptight seeing them on campus.

  It’s not altogether surprising that the Yankees got into a fight. When I was with the club and we lost a few games Houk would have a meeting and he’d say something like, “Now, don’t anyone be afraid to start something. If you get into a fight we’ll all be with you.”

  Houk believed that fights woke teams up and made them play better. He also used the clubhouse meeting for effect. Like before the game with us he asked Len Boehmer, the catcher, how to throw to Hegan. “When Hegan was in our organization,” Boehmer said, “they used to get him out with fast balls down the middle.”

  “Good,” Houk said. “Meeting’s over.”

  I think somewhere about the middle of the first inning they wished they’d had one.

  One of my favorite Houk meetings took place before a game with the Red Sox during a losing streak in 1963.

  “I just got to looking at these two lineups,” he said, “and I thought I ought to compare them for you. Take the leadoff man. They got Mike Andrews. We got Bobby Richardson. Any comparison there? No. Number two we got Tom Tresh and they got Rico Petrocelli. (This was when Petrocelli was just coming up and Tresh was just off rookie of the year.) Could you imagine trading Tresh for Petrocelli? Third is Carl Yastrzemski and Roger Maris. Well, Yastrzemski is not a bad player, so maybe there’s a standoff there. But look who’s batting fourth! Jim Pagliaroni and Mickey Mantle. Now who the hell is Pagliaroni?” It broke up the whole clubhouse and really made his point.

  The Yankees know I’ve been throwing the knuckleball and they all asked me how it was coming. I told them gre
at. I think Chicken Colonel Turner is worried about it, concerned that I might have come up with a good one. This wouldn’t show him in a very good light since he never even talked to me at the end, much less encouraged me to experiment. But get this. While I was warming up in our bullpen he told a couple of Yankee players, “You know, when we sent Bouton to Syracuse, the year before last, I told him to start throwing that knuckleball, but he wouldn’t listen to me.”

  MAY

  13

  I think I should have a chance to pitch against the Yankees tonight. It’s Stottlemyre against Gary Bell, and my roomie has been giving up runs. Against Stottlemyre we could easily be down a couple of runs by the fourth or fifth inning and then pinch-hit for Bell. At least I’m hoping I’ll be first up. It hasn’t been happening that way. I’ve been pitching better than Aker, and although Segui has won our last two games, he’s been hit both times. Last night Schultz had O’Donoghue and Aker warming up and then O’Donoghue and Segui in a short situation. So why do I think it will be me tonight? Because I’m an optimist, that’s why.

  If I do get in, and if I should win, I’ll send for Jim Ogle and insist he interview me. I wonder if he talks to rapists.

  Hot flash! Whitey Ford’s Italian restaurant in the bullpen has a real rival in the Baltimore bullpen: wienie roasts.

  The pitchers’ game is in full operation, and it’s been costing me a few bob. The reason is that a system of bets and fines has been set up, and one of the fines is for fraternizing with the opposition. With the Yankees in town this has already cost me $2. On the other hand, I have had some satisfactions. One of the games is splitting the pitching staff into two teams during batting practice, with the losing team having to drop 50¢ into the kitty. I’m a terrible hitter in batting practice, possibly because I’m a terrible hitter in games. I’m so bad they call me Cancer Bat, and when they made up the teams I was, naturally, thrown in at the end. When one of the guys on the other team complained that Bell’s team had all the good hitters, he said, “Whaddayamean? We got Bouton.” That seemed to mollify the opposition. So the first night of competition I got four line-drive singles and led my team to victory. That’ll teach them to fool around with the Bulldog.