Ball Four (RosettaBooks Sports Classics) (37 page)

I should say something about all the injuries we’ve had. It will explain, at least to some extent, why we’ve been going so poorly. John Donaldson, our second baseman, has a fractured toe. John Kennedy wrenched his knee and is in a cast. Rich Rollins is having a knee operation that finishes him for the year. Steve Barber is still on the disabled list (his arm doesn’t hurt, it’s just a little stiff). Tommy Harper has a pulled thigh muscle and a bad sliding strawberry. Ray Oyler has been out with a hamstring pull. So has Mike Hegan.

You will also notice that while our infielders are dropping like flies, our starting pitchers remain disgustingly healthy, if not particularly effective.

I was chatting with Fred Talbot about contracts and keeping statistics to use as negotiating arguments and he said, “Aw hell, I don’t keep statistics. Whatever they send me, I just sign and send it back. Of course, I call them a few names first.”

Out for a most pleasant afternoon on my neighbor’s boat, cruising through the locks from Lake Washington into Puget Sound with my wife and kids. Also Garry Roggenburk, Gordie Lund, utility infielder, and Steve Hovley, whom I invited along. Hovley wound up stealing my pants.

It was my fault. He was wearing Bermudas, and on the way into the ballpark I suggested he switch, that I’d get less static than he walking into the park in Bermudas. He agreed. But when he got out of the car, running, he had his Bermudas
and
my pants. So I had to walk into the clubhouse, late, wearing my bathing suit. And naturally Hovley was one of the people who said, “A
bathing suit!
?”

Tomorrow Diego Segui leaves the bullpen for a start. So I went over to Sal Maglie to chew on his leg for a while.

“Sal, what’s the story?”

“About what?”

“About the fact that I’m not starting and Diego Segui is.”

“Well, it has nothing to do with personalities.”

Never occurred to me that it had. Well, hardly ever.

“You know something, Jim?” Pagliaroni said to me today. “I’m convinced that they think you’re a character.”

“What kind, Pag?” I said.

“Not your personality or anything,” he said. “But that pitch. And the fact that you throw it all the time. As recently as two days ago I heard Sal telling Joe that he’s told you time and time again that you’re throwing too much in the outfield. I think Joe likes your knuckleball, I really do, but I don’t think Sal does, and they think it’s a little weird that you do all that throwing.”

Jim Pagliaroni is one of the most perceptive Italian catchers in the big leagues.

Joe Schultz called a morale meeting tonight and did a good job of it. He said that we were losing because of injuries and that we shouldn’t begin pressing to try to make up for them. He said that if we weren’t big-league ballplayers we wouldn’t be playing in the big leagues, and that we were just as good as any other club. “Sometimes things turn around all of a sudden and you start winning a whole lot of games. You can win them just as easy as lose them.”

It was a good speech and made us all feel better, and I agreed with all of it. Except one small part. Minnesota is better.

Diego Segui pitched a marvelous ballgame. He was magnificent throughout and won it 2–1. As I watched the game I was torn between wanting him to get bombed and wanting him to do well, because we could use a win and because he’s a good fellow. So there I was torn, and warming up in almost every inning. In the second game, same thing. And I never got into either game.

“You know something?” said Pagliaroni. “You looked great warming up.”

I told him thanks.

Even winning we didn’t do much to stop Rod Carew, who is now leading the league. He’s the kind of hitter who puts the ball into a hole someplace, or bloops one, every time. “He can’t miss,” McNertney said. “If I were him I’d go looking for wallets.”

Steve Hovley won the first game for us. It was a 1–1 tie in the last of the ninth, bases loaded, Hovley up and Ron Perranoski, the old pro, pitching. It was a classic confrontation: the graybeard, wily pitcher against the upstart young slugger. In the end, Hovley beat the old man at his own game. He worked the count to 3 and 2 and then fouled off a couple of borderline pitches. It was exciting. Me, I ran all the way down to the dugout so I could be closer to what was happening. And as I watched Hovley struggling out there against the best reliever in the league, I thought, how can a guy with friends like Dostoyevsky be scared in this kind of situation? He wasn’t. He hung in for another foul ball and then got the base on balls, forcing in the run.

As we walked down to the clubhouse I heard John Gelnar say, “You know, one good thing about having Hovley up there, he’s too goony to be scared.”

In the second game Hovley hit his second home run of the season. I’m the proud owner of the first ball he hit out. I bought it from the kid who caught it. Hovley said he didn’t want it. He said he didn’t think it was particularly important. The year he hits 62 it may be my most valuable possession.

I think the world should know that a girl one of my teammates goes out with is called “Rotorooter.” Around the clubhouse, guys sing, “Tell Rotorooter I love her.”

When I came in from the bullpen after we won the second game, Joe was patting everybody on the back, saying “Attaway to go” and “Nice job.” When he got to me I said, “Joe, I really had it out there tonight in the bullpen.”

“You did?” Joe said.

“Yup. Great knuckleball. Hellacious.”

“Did you throw too much?”

“Hell no.”

“Good. You’re starting tomorrow night. Feel up to it?”

“Hell yes.”

Well, what do you know? It’s “put-up-or-shut-up” time for Jim Bouton.

Before I left the ballpark tonight, Sal Maglie said, “Get your sleep, Bouton.”

And I said, “Right, Sal. And I want to have a catcher out there five hours before game time so I can start warming up.”

Driving home I found myself doing a lot of worrying. Should I take a sleeping pill tonight? Should I sleep late or get up early and take a nap later? What should I eat? At what time? Then I thought, “What the hell am I worried about all this crap for? I’ve started a lot more important games. World Series games, pennant-race games. And here I am acting like a kid.” Foolishness. I’m just going to be normal. I’m going to sleep tonight and not even think about it. When I start the game I’m going to pretend that I’m in there for relief, that I’m just going to pitch a few innings the way I do almost every day.

Look at it this way. In a couple of days two men are going to land on the moon. How the hell can I be nervous about starting a baseball game? Even if it is against the Fat Kid and his wrecking crew.

I went over the hitters with McNertney before the game. For me the only thing this involves is deciding which hitters we’re going to throw fastballs to on what particular count. We know we’re going to start everyone off with a knuckleball and we’re going with it until 3 and 0. On the big hitters, like Killebrew, we decided to throw the knuckleball even on 3 and 0. We’d also throw the 3-and-0 knuckleball to any guy who was hitting in a game-winning situation, even if we walked him. I mean, I’d rather give up a base on balls than a three-run homer.

My main concern was that Carew and Tovar would be stealing on my knuckleball, so we went over the pick-off signs carefully and hoped for the best.

It wasn’t good enough.

In my first start of the year, on this day of July 19, 1969, A.D., I, James Alan Bouton, was creamed.

Five runs were scored off me before I was mercifully taken out of the game with two out in the fourth. There were two home runs, by Leo Cardenas and Ted Uhlaender. When Joe Schultz came out to get me I could only think of a line Fred Talbot delivered in similar circumstances: “What kept you?”

Not more than one out of every three knuckleballs I threw was doing its proper thing. Besides, my control was way off and I was behind on the hitters.

I started out in trouble and recovered. With two out, the Fat Kid got on base because of an error. A single and a walk loaded the bases, but I struck out Bob Allison on a 3-and-2 knuckleball.

After that, oblivion. I blocked it all almost as quickly as I could shower, dress and join my family in the stands. That’s the easiest way for me to forget. I crawl back to my family and use them for a crutch. Some guys drink. I talk about the kids needing new shoes.

I was glad to have the chance to start, of course. Yet now that I’ve fouled everything up so royally I’m thinking of excuses. Why did they have to start me against Minnesota? Maybe if I knew a few days in advance I could have prepared myself better. Maybe I should have taken a greenie. That’s just kidding myself, of course. I had a start and I didn’t win, and now I can look forward to the All-Star break.

Now that I think of it, I didn’t lose either. We were losing 5–0 when I left the game. We tied the game at 7–7 and went sixteen innings before stopping on account of curfew. I think I’ll remind Sal and Joe that I’m still undefeated as a starter.

And I just remembered something else. When my boy Mike was still a baby and he cried, I’d say to him, “Harmon Killebrew’s little boy doesn’t cry.” Now I wonder if Harmon Killebrew ever thinks of crying.

Poor John Gelnar. The game was picked up today in the seventeenth inning and he promptly lost it. Then he lost the regular game, which is two in one day and not, under most circumstances, easy to do.

And my record, as we go into the All-Star break, is 1–0. Not much to show for a half-season’s work. Still, it’s better than 1–1… or 1–2, not to mention 1–3.

Kyong Jo has been with us for almost a year now and the rapidity with which he’s learned English is amazing. Today he came to me with a complaint. “Dad, the kids call me John Jo, or King Jo,” he said. “Why don’t they call me Kyong Jo?”

I explained that Kyong Jo was a Korean name and difficult for American children to pronounce. And I asked him if he would like to have an American name.

This is something Bobbie and I had been talking about for some time. We didn’t want to change his name right away. It was difficult enough for him to make the adjustment to a new country and new parents without, at the same time, robbing him of the only familiar thing he had left, his name. So we called him Kyong Jo. But we thought he’d want to change it eventually, and now was the time.

He said yes, he’d like an American name.

“How about David?” I said.

He thought about it for a moment, then said, “Yeah.”

“Okay, we’ll call you David. You’ll be David Kyong Jo Bouton.”

“Okay,” he said.

And he ran out the front door shouting to the neighborhood kids, “Hey, everybody. I’m David. I’m
David
!”

I take this opportunity to present a lexicon of words and phrases encountered around baseball that are, more or less, unique to the game. There are a great many phrases having to do with a pitcher throwing at a batter. Among them are:

Chin music
, as in “Let’s hear a little chin music out there,” this being a suggestion that the pitcher throw the baseball near the hitter’s chin.

Purpose pitch
, which is a pitch that knocks a batter down purposely, or perhaps may just

Spin his cap
.

Keep him honest
, which means, make the batter afraid if you can.

Loosen him up
, meaning that if enough baseballs are thrown close to a hitter, he’ll fall down easily.

Other phrases that often come up in conversation are:

Tweener
, any ball hit not especially hard but directly between two outfielders, neither of whom can reach it in time.

Take him over the wall
, hit a home run, as in “Horton took Bouton over the wall in the fifth.”

Down the cock
is the quintessence of the hitting zone. Any pitch like that is bound to be
Juiced
, with some kind of power.

Parts of the body also have special appellations:

Boiler
, as in “he’s got the bad boiler,” or upset stomach.

Hose
is arm.

Moss
is hair.

Shoes are
kicks
and clothes are
vines
, and when the bases are loaded they’re
drunk
. A good fielder can really
pick it
, and if you want to tell a guy to go sit down, it’s
Go grab some bench
. Organized baseball is
O.B
., and a stupid player has the
worst head in O.B. Wheels
are legs, and an infielder has
the good hands
or
the bad hands
as girls have
the good wheels
or
the bad wheels
. For some reason the definite article is important there. An angry man has
the red ass
or
the R.A
.

Camp followers, whether they’re eleven or sixty-five or somewhere in between, are called
Baseball Annies
. And if a player, coach or manager should bring a girl with him to another city, she’s called an
import
. If an import is a
mullion
, she may have to pay her own way.

A pimple or boil is called a
bolt
, as in “get a wrench for that bolt.” A hard line drive is a
blue darter, frozen rope
or an
ungodly shot
. To think is to
have an idea
, so that when a pitcher seems to be losing his cool a coach might shout at him, “Have an idea out there.”

And a fellow who talks big but appears to lack courage is said to have an
alligator mouth
and a
hummingbird ass
.

Baseball is not without its charms.

Department of It’s Not How You Play the Game, It’s Whether You Win or Lose. I was at a pool watching my kids take their swimming lessons today and one of the women said to me, “Why aren’t you watching the All-Star game?”