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Narrated by Barry Abrams
Mitchell NathansonUnabridged — 13 hours, 55 minutes
Narrated by Barry Abrams
Mitchell NathansonUnabridged — 13 hours, 55 minutes
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When Mitchell Nathanson…approached Bouton about writing his biography, the pitcher gave his blessing, on one condition: that Nathanson write about him with the honesty he'd tried to bring to the game of baseball. In Bouton: The Life of a Baseball Original, Nathanson has mostly obliged, delivering a frank if manifestly fond account of a remarkable American life.
Once you start reading, you will not be able to stop. A compelling look at one of the most influential and controversial figures in baseball history. A new generation needs to know the story of Jim Bouton: a man who never wearied of gleefully and hilariously skewering the establishment but who also had the old-school drive to will his dreams into reality. Above all, a lifetime love of baseball shines through in every chapter—a true reflection of Bouton himself.”—Brian Kenny, host for MLB Network and author of Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution
"Bouton is a book that deserves space next to Ball Four on the bookshelf. Nathanson has done a thorough job of presenting the life of a complex man who changed the game of baseball, not by what he did on the field, but what he observed on the field, in the clubhouse and on the road."—Bob D'Angelo, Sports Bookie
"Nathanson's source list is deep and insightful and his writing is crisp. And his access to Bouton's Ball Four notes provides answers to some lingering questions."—Dennis Star, Peoria Journal Star
"Nathanson . . . an astute writer on the game, is at his best on the Bouton-Shecter collaboration—late nights at the Lion’s Head Bar in Greenwich Village; Shecter making sense of Bouton’s scrawls on stationery, envelopes and toilet paper; the pair noodling over the manuscript stripped down to their underwear in Shecter’s airless Chelsea apartment. . . . Nathanson is good, too, with Bouton wisecracks."—Maxwell Carter, Wall Street Journal
"Nathanson goes beyond tracing Bouton’s life, focusing instead on explicating the roots of Ball Four. In so doing, the book becomes an inside-publishing exposé, showing how the publication and selling of Ball Four changed our expectations of what a sports book could be. . . . In addition, the book provides fascinating details about Bouton's post–Ball Four life, including his fling at acting and his turn as an entrepreneur, developing the successful bubble-gum product Big League Chew. A welcome look at one of baseball's signature mavericks."—Mark Levine, Booklist
"A well-researched and fascinating read that tells how the free thinking Bouton always marched to the beat of his own drummer."—John Werner, Waco Tribune-Herald
“Half a century after Jim Bouton’s Ball Four hilariously let the air out of Major League Baseball’s inflated self-image, one of the game’s most fascinating characters finally gets the biography he deserves. Unfettered and unfiltered, like Bouton himself, Bouton will make you laugh, make you cry, and make you wanna pound that Budweiser. To paraphrase the late, great Joe Schultz, ‘Attaway to go, Mitchell Nathanson!’”—Dan Epstein, author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s
“For years people have told me that they fell in love with baseball after reading Ball Four. Jim Bouton was a unique character on the baseball stage, a figure of historical importance. It’s time we all knew him better, and Mitchell Nathanson’s book gets that done.”—Marty Appel, New York Yankees historian and author of Pinstripe Empire and Casey Stengel
"If the reader has ever read Ball Four, then this book is one that he or she must add to their library as well as it is a great account of the man behind the legendary book."—Guy Who Reviews Sports Books
"When Mitchell Nathanson, a professor of sports law at Villanova, approached Bouton about writing his biography, the pitcher gave his blessing, on one condition: that Nathanson write about him with the honesty he’d tried to bring to the game of baseball. . . . Nathanson moves crisply through the deep back story, though he knows a good detail when he sees one."—John Swansburg, New York Times Book Review
“Once you start reading, you will not be able to stop. A compelling look at one of the most influential and controversial figures in baseball history. A new generation needs to know the story of Jim Bouton: a man who never wearied of gleefully and hilariously skewering the establishment but who also had the old-school drive to will his dreams into reality. Above all, a lifetime love of baseball shines through in every chapter—a true reflection of Bouton himself.”—Brian Kenny, host for MLB Network and author of Ahead of the Curve: Inside the Baseball Revolution
"Readers who choose to visit Bouton will feel pleased to have made the acquaintance of a truly unique player in the panorama of American sports."—J. Kemper Campbell, Lincoln Journal Star
★ 05/01/2020
One might wonder how a baseball pitcher with a resume of only 62 major league victories (against 63 losses) merits a comprehensive biography. However, Nathanson (Villanova Univ. Sch. of Law; God Almighty Hisself) uses these pages to their fullest in presenting the life of Jim Bouton (1939–2019), who spent most of his career as a pitcher for the New York Yankees and was a vocal advocate of barring the apartheid state of South Africa from two Olympics. His 1970 tell-all, Ball Four, was controversial at the time, but eventually gained commercial success and became a baseball classic. With revelations of widespread drug use and drunkenness among baseball stars, the book forever altered perceptions of our heroes, such as Mickey Mantle, and how they would be treated in print. After Bouton was essentially blacklisted from the major leagues, he became a sportscaster, actor, entrepreneur, and advocate for the restoration of a rickety former minor league ballpark, to name a few of his endeavors. VERDICT Baseball fans will laugh alongside and, ultimately, feel touched by this look at an iconoclastic, often quixotic man who, despite the charges that his landmark book had hurt the game, loved baseball to the very end.—Jim Burns, formerly with Jacksonville P.L., FL
| BN ID: | 2940177306940 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Tantor Audio |
| Publication date: | 05/01/2020 |
| Edition description: | Unabridged |
