In Rare Case, Bouton Finds Life After Sports

Jim Bouton got into movies the usual way: nine years in the big leagues, a couple of World Series with the Yankees, a blown-out right pitching arm, a comeback as a knuckleballer, a gargantuan-selling book, “Ball Four,” and some pickup basketball with Elliott Gould.The last item earned him an out-of-the-blue phone call from Robert Altman late in 1972, by which time he had been out of baseball for two years (though he made a brief comeback with the Atlanta Braves in 1978). Altman was making a film of Raymond Chandler’s 1953 novel “The Long Goodbye,” with Gould cast as private detective Philip Marlowe. As the role had previously been played by, among others, Humphrey Bogart, Robert Montgomery, Dick Powell, and James Garner, the lead casting alone was enough to indicate that Altman was going for something different.The resulting film was a financial flop, but one that has never ceased to be hotly debated by both Altman and Chandler loyalists. The consensus seems to be that “The Long Goodbye” was two parts Altman to one part Chandler. One of the most Altman-esque touches was the casting of Bouton as Marlowe’s pal Terry Lennox. Bouton’s smart-aleck, offbeat charm won him several nice reviews, including a nod from the New Yorker’s Pauline Kael. But for all intents and purposes, it was both the beginning and end of Bouton’s film career.“Did you ever consider making another movie?” someone asked him at a showing of “The Long Goodbye” last week at Film Forum.“Yeah, I considered making a lot of films,” he laughed, “but no one else ever asked me.” No matter, he found plenty of ways to keep busy.Next year marks the 40th anniversary of the 1969 season Bouton wrote about in “Ball Four,” an up-and-down journey through the armpit of Major League Baseball with the Seattle Pilots (later to become the Milwaukee Brewers) and Houston Astros. There was also a generous helping of memories from the Yankee years — when he was a mainstay on three straight pennant winners, winning 21 games in 1963,18 the following season, and two against the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1964 World Series. Then there was the subsequent blowout of his arm, which derailed what looked to be a great major league career.No one — especially a ballplayer — had ever before written about the joys, sorrows, and sometimes plain boredom of the life in baseball. No one before Bouton had ever talked about the inner workings of the game and the everyday lives of the players — replete with depressions, infidelity, and alcohol — with such honesty. Twenty-five years after its publication, the New York Public Library selected “Ball Four” as the only sports book in its “Books of the Century” exhibit.For most ballplayers, life after baseball is death. For Bouton, it was a second coming.He was a delegate to the Democratic Convention in Chicago in 1972; worked as a television sportscaster for WABC and WCBS; wrote or edited four more books (including a novel, “Strike Zone,” with Eliot Asinof in 1994), and started two successful companies, Big League Chew, which makes a chewing gum to replace chewing tobacco, and Big League Cards, which makes personalized, professional-quality baseball cards.Along the way he alienated himself from everyone in the baseball establishment, from former teammate Mickey Mantle to Joe Garagiola to George Steinbrenner (who, heeding the wishes of several former Yankees, withheld invitations to appear in Old-Timers’ Games).Some of that has changed. Steinbrenner relented on the Old-Timers’ Day ban after an open letter of reconciliation from Bouton’s son, Michael, appeared in the New York Times. And years ago, Mantle, who had long nursed a grudge over the disclosures of his drinking and womanizing in “Ball Four,” gave it up and reconciled with Bouton over the phone.“You know what?” Bouton said. “I was kind of surprised when Mickey’s memoirs came out. He was much more honest and open about his own life and career than he’d ever been before. I’d be proud if I thought I had something to do with that.”Some never reconciled with Bouton and never will. Former commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who died last year, went to his grave insisting that “Ball Four” was “detrimental to baseball. Baseball’s dirty laundry shouldn’t be aired publicly,” he was quoted as saying.“I hope,” Bouton said, solemnly sipping a Diet Coke in the Film Forum lobby, “that I wasn’t responsible for causing him stress in his old age.” (Kuhn’s antipathy toward Bouton extended back to 1966, when Bouton became the Yankees’ first team rep in the players union established by Marvin Miller.)Some people have compared Jose Canseco’s disclosures of his own drug use and allegations of others as a 21st-century version of “Ball Four.” What, I wanted to know, did he think of that?“Uh — no comment, except I don’t think that’s a valid comparison,” Bouton said. “No, on second thought, I do want to say something about Jose. He said in his book that he could have ended the strike [in 1994]. If the owners had come to him, he said, he’d have led a bunch of scabs into the lineups that would have broken the back of the union. What kind of drugs was he on? Doesn’t he have any idea how he earned millions playing baseball?“If the Players Association hadn’t won free agency for the players, who does he think would have paid him all that money?” he continued. “Without the union, the owners would be paying the players a 10th of what they’re worth, and still bitch about how financially strapped they are.”On the subject of the building of the new Yankee Stadium and the fate of the old — don’t get him started. “The whole thing is just outrageous,” he told the audience at Film Forum. “It’s a total disgrace, and a perfect example of the failure of democracy. Why did we need a new Yankee Stadium if, with the old one, the Yankees were leading the league in attendance?“Who wanted Yankee Stadium torn down? Not the fans who buy the tickets, and not the taxpayers, who are going to foot much of the bill just so they can pay higher ticket prices for the fewer seats that are available. I think it was said best by one of the main culprits in all of it, Rudolph Giuliani. When someone asked him ‘Why aren’t the fans allowed to vote for this new stadium?’ he said, ‘Because they’d vote against it.'”Aren’t you afraid, an audience member wanted to know, that mouthing off about the new Yankee Stadium will get you banished all over again? “Oh, heck,” he said with a wave of his hand, “let the chips fall.”Mr. Barra is the author of “The Last Coach: A Life of Paul ‘Bear’ Bryant.”

In Rare Case, Bouton Finds Life After Sports

In Rare Case, Bouton Finds Life After Sports

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