"Ball Four"

Ball Four (Jim Bouton)

Nham's Guide to Driving Your Wife Crazy Using "Ball Four"

(Warning: Neither N. Ham nor this blog are liable for any bodily injury that my result from using this guide, including, but not limited to, bodily harm up to, and including, tickling, being told that you are no longer allowed to do something you enjoy for a tenuous reason related to following this guide, and any other myriad ways your wife has of expressing her displeasure. If your wife tells you that what you are doing is "fine", immediately discontinue use of this guide. Women who are pregnant or are about to become pregnant should not handle this guide. Consult a local advice columnist immediately if you notice any of these side effects.)

Step 1: Read Ball Four (spoiler alert: it's pretty good).

Step 2: Get married.

Step 3: Watch baseball around your wife so that she becomes interested in it.

Step 4: Answer all of her questions about baseball with "Well, like it says in Ball Four..."

Step 5: Have an escape route ready.

In all seriousness, this is a great book, a rare actual athlete-written autobiography instead of someone talking into a tape recorder, and its honest portrayal of players and coaches blew the lid off baseball's all-american clean-cut mom and apple pie image when it was first published. Beyond that, though, it's also very funny, and after spending a few pages with Bouton I found it very hard not to start rooting for the guy (at this point in his career he's an old junkballer whose big goal is to land a spot on the Seattle Pilots, a terrible new expansion team). It's been said that "Ball Four is a people book, not just a baseball book", and I don't know that I can really add anything to that; I don't think you need to know or even really care about baseball to have a blast reading this, although if you do the behind the scenes looks that caused such a kerfluffle when the book was originally published are probably even more interesting. In fact, about the only complaint I have is that I can't think up a good ending for this review, which is hardly the book's fault, but I need to blame somebody who isn't me.

Grade: A