From the day he first stepped into the Yankee clubhouse, Jim Bouton (1939–2019) was the sports world's deceptive revolutionary. Underneath the crew cut and behind the all-American boy-next-door good looks lurked a maverick with a signature style. Whether it was his frank talk about player salaries and mistreatment by management, his passionate advocacy of progressive politics, or his efforts to convince the United States to boycott the 1968 Olympics, Bouton confronted the conservative sports world and compelled it to catch up with a rapidly changing American society.
Bouton defied tremendous odds to make the majors, won two games for the Yankees in the 1964 World Series, and staged an improbable comeback with the Braves as a thirty-nine-year-old. But it was his fateful 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and his resulting insider's account, Ball Four, that did nothing less than reintroduce America to its national pastime in a lasting, profound way.
In Bouton: The Life of a Baseball Original, Mitchell Nathanson gives listeners a look at Bouton's remarkable life. Based on wide-ranging interviews Nathanson conducted with Bouton, family, friends, and others, he provides an intimate, inside account of Bouton's life.
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