RIP Jim Bouton

[Aquarian Sports Cards]

Just sold an autographed copy of Foul Ball in our last auction. He had a real love for the game. Kept playing in the minors years after he was done in the majors, and foul ball is pretty much a love story.

[BleedinBlue]

Jim played on my vintage baseball team until about 2 years ago. He was still a fierce competitor and routinely threw 200 pitches per game until the age of 78x

The Simsbury Taverneers will miss our teammate. The Bulldog.

Huzzah
Huzzah
Huzzah

[barrysloate]

I remember walking in Southampton, Long Island one day and Bouton walked past me in the opposite direction. I smiled but was too nervous to say hello. One of the alltime baseball personalities, and let's not forget he was a pretty good pitcher too. Wasn't 1962 his best year?

[Jim65]

I saw Jim pitch in the NJ Met League many times, he was in his 50's and the games he pitched always drew good crowds, he was always a gentleman. RIP Jim.

[commishbob]

I was given a copy of Ball Four as a high school graduation gift in 1970. I read it and it changed forever the way I looked at, not only baseball but all pro sports from then on.

[Al C.risafulli]

Author of what is, in my opinion, the most beautiful line there is about baseball and how it impacts us - not just players, but fans:

"You spend a good piece of your life gripping a baseball and in the end it was the other way around the whole time."

Sorry to see him go. Dementia is awful, though, so I'm glad he's got peace.

-Al

[CMIZ5290]

Jeff, Back in the mid 1980's, we hired a salesperson for the Lincoln-Mercury Dealership in South Ga., and her name was Barbara (dont recall her last name) and she was a solid employee. She told my Father and me that she was the daughter of Jim Bouton by way of a deceptive relationship with her Mother, but she didn't find out about being his daughter until she was 20 years old. She contacted her Mother later wanting to try and connect with him. We didn't think anything of it, and one Saturday morning, he strolled into the Dealership. He hugged and kissed her, and they later went and had lunch together. She stayed with us for about a year longer, but I never heard how it turned out. Looking at how he interacted with Barbara, I believe he really was her Father. He signed many autographs for the people there, but there was definitely a thing in his eyes thinking this was really his daughter....

[kkkkandp]

Jeff:

My brush with Jim Bouton was not as grand and glorious as yours, but very similar.

When my son was born in 1983, we wanted to do a "different" kind of birth announcement. Since I was back into collecting cards at that point we thought it would be cool to do a custom baseball card. When I searched for someone who could do it, I found just such a local business - Big League Cards, Inc.

Sounds like a big deal, right? We went to an office building in Teaneck, New Jersey and found the room number. When we went in the door - the "corporation" was Jim Bouton. He was sitting behind the desk; he took the order; he handled the payment. He was a one-man show! It was awesome to just talk to the guy because he was a local hero, but just one of us! We talked about a bunch of Yankee stuff, but also some generic stuff. My wife is a phys ed/health teacher and we started talking about the dangers of chewing tobacco and how kids look up to (and emulate) big leaguers. That's when we found out about his Big League Chew (bubble gum) venture. Just a real down-to-earth guy.

I'm so glad we decided on a baseball card!

RIP, Jim!

[MRSPORTSCARDCOLLECTOR]

Sorry to hear about his passing. I never read Ball Four but will over the summer.
Seems like it will be a good summer read.