Q & A With Jim Bouton
By Cecilia Tan | Pro Baseball Central GothamBaseball.com | on Friday, February 3 2006

It's February and I am impatient for some real baseball news to come along. Until it does, I must content myself with the scraps that come over the wire: Robinson Cano would rather win a World Series than the World Baseball Classic, Enrique Wilson has been invited to Red Sox spring training, and Roger Clemens pitched batting practice in Astros mini-camp. That's about it for the "news."

Thank goodness there is no shortage of "old" stuff then, to occupy our minds. This week I went down memory lane with Jim Bouton. Bouton is best-known for writing Ball Four, the book which made him a household name, but before he became an iconoclastic scribe chronicling the struggles of ballplayers, he was a hot shot pitcher for the New York Yankees. Bouton had been a prized prospect and appeared in two World Series. I didn't interview him so much as have a spirited chat with the man.

Cecilia Tan: So, your first World Series was when, 1962?

Jim Bouton: I almost pitched the 7th game of the 1962 World Series.

CT: Ralph Terry never mentioned that to me!

JB: In 1962 Whitey Ford had hurt his arm. The sports reporters asked [manager Ralph] Houk who was going to pitch tomorrow, and he said he didn't know, which meant it was me because he wouldn't tell me beforehand so I'd toss and turn all night. Ralph relied on seven pitchers all year and I was one of the seven. He said I'm going to go with these guys and that was what he did all year. But then it rained for three days, and game seven was postponed for several days, so they went with Ralph Terry.

CT: Which was ironic since it was Terry who gave up the Bill Mazeroski home run in game seven in 1960. Did guys still talk about 1960 when you came up? The whole Mickey Mantle cried and stuff?

JB: Nah, that was history, Ralph [Terry] wanted to get the monkey off his back with having given up the home run, so after the 7th game everybody was happy for him because he wouldn't just be remembered as the guy who gave up that home run.

CT: So, enough about Ralph Terry. What about you, Jim? What was your greatest World Series game?

JB: Oh, 1964 without a doubt.

CT: This was before you really started to have arm trouble.

JB: My arm bothered me the first half of '64, I was only 3-8 or something at the All Star break, and I wasn't sure what the problem was. Then I had an impacted wisdom tooth removed during the All-Star break and when I came back I felt strong--won [a bunch of] games the second half, so I was throwing as well as I've ever thrown. By the time the World Series came around I was ready. (laughs) Players have these memories. I remember the pennant race and the harmonica incident and all that, and Mickey Mantle calling his shot.

CT: All right, I have to hear more about that.

JB: I never told you this one? I was sitting on the bench near the bat rack and Mickey was standing on the dugout steps watching Barney Schultz throw his knuckle ball. And Barney Schultz' knuckleball was dropping about a foot--knee high, drop to the ankles, knee high, drop to the ankles. Mickey had been batting righthanded against Simmons and he had a tomahawk swing, these vicious line drive homeruns with overspin on it, but lefthanded he had an uppercut. So here's Barney Schulz throwing this knuckleball into Mickey's uppercut stroke. He's watching Barney's warmup throws, and he says to the trainer maybe, Joe Sauros, and I overheard it--that he's going to hit it out. Not a big announcement, he wasn't the type to be a big shot or make predictions, it was just a statement of fact. So he walked up to the plate, Barney threw his first pitch, and Mickey hit a seven iron into the upper deck.

CT: What were you thinking then?

JB: The minute he hit it we all knew it was gone, the only question was would it clear the roof? He actually hit it higher than the facade but it then dropped down into the stands.

CT: And what did you do?

JB: When they run it on Classic Sports you see a guy running in from the left in a pitcher's jacket? That was me, greeting him at home plate. And I was thinking that was great because otherwise I'd have to go out and pitch the tenth. Nobody was warmed up. Starters almost never go into the tenth inning now.

CT: Now you're starting to sound like an old timer.

JB: There was no thought of taking me out. Plus, I think I drove in our only run ? Or was that in a different game?

CT: Hate to break it to you, but that was a different game.



Cecilia Tan is the author of The 50 Greatest Yankee Games (Wiley, in bookstores now) and the producer of the baseball Web magazine Why I Like Baseball.