Ball Four, Jim Bouton's tell-all diary of his 1969 season, is still considered by most baseball book critics to be the best book ever written by an active player. But this high acclaim didn't come without a price, part of the charm of Ball Four was that Bouton, then of the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros, held very nothing back. His book was the first to really detail the not-so-polished underside of major league baseball. In the book he told about the role of Baseball Annies, the use of amphetimines before games, the surly attitudes of superstars like Mickey Mantle, salary disputes, and much much more. And the baseball establishment didn't care for this. They wanted the game to be viewed by the pure as apple pie and the American Flag.

Which brings us to I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally, which could have been subtitled The Battle Of Ball Four. The main topic of the book is Bouton telling all about the upheaval that surrounded him following Ball Four's publication during the 1970 season.

He tells about Pete Rose and Johnny Bench yelling at him after a bad outing in Cincinatti, "Shakespeare, you no-good rat-fin. Put that in your fucking book." And of course everytime the count ran to three balls with Bouton on the mound, someone was sure to shout, "What's the title of your book?"

The best chapter in I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally revolves around Bouton's meeting with then-commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who was not at all happy with Ball Four's revelations.

I acknowldege a deep debt to Bowie Kuhn, our Commissioner. There are some who say it's a quarter of a million. I consider that an exaggeration. The reason for this debt is that he called me into his office to chat about Ball Four. As a result, there were headlines on every front page in the country. That's fame, and fame in the book business is fortune...To this day a lot of people ask me what I paid the commissioner. This is a base canard and I resent it. Kuhn is an honorable man and I could not have bribed him to do the marvelous things he did for me. I can only assume that he did them out of friendship.

Some players threatened to beat Bouton up over what was said in the book, no one went through with their threat of course. But others actually enjoyed it. Juan Marichal, Hall of Fame pitcher, said, "If it's the truth, no matter how bad it is, I have to go along with it." Joe Schultz, manager of the Seattle Pilots and a main character throughout Ball Four, said, "What the shit. The more I think about it, it's not so bad."

The sarcastic and witty Bouton humor that helped make Ball Four such an enjoyable read is evident again in I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally. Witness this exchange:

Mack Jones of the Montreal Expos peered over the dugout and said, "Which one is Bouton? I never met him."

A bystander, jokingly: "You will, in his book."

Jones, furiously: "If my name is anywhere in that book, he's going to get a punch in the mouth from me, I mean it."

Three things. One: Mack Jones wasn't in Ball Four. Two: Who the hell ever heard of Mack Jones? Three: He's in this one, and my mouth, I suppose, is available.

All in all, I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally is an enjoyable read. Don't even think about picking up a copy though unless you've read Ball Four at least once before. It's not even close to being a Ball Four-caliber of book, but there are very few that reach that level. But it's definitely worth reading if you can find an inexpensive copy somewhere.

I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally may be available for purchase on the web at one of these sites.

--JingleBob, July 11, 1999

© 1999 JC White