Ball Four

This book is a classic. It was one of the first books to really tell all the juicy tales about pro baseball and everything that went with being a ballplayer—women, drinking, etc. So I decided to pick it up. The guy has a pretty interesting story to tell, but it was so long ago. Plus, it’s in the form of a diary, so there are a lot of meaningless details strews throughout the book. I just couldn’t keep reading, it felt like I was weeding through a whole lot of nothing to find something interesting. Plus it’s over 400 pages, so I stopped way short of that. He’s got an engaging writing style, very open and honest, which makes him even more interesting because of the contrast between him being a ballplayer and being a writer (the prose here is WAY better than in Canseco’s recent book—it makes Bouton look like Foster Wallace).

Anyway, for those of you who were into baseball in those days and knew the players, it may be interesting. Otherwise, it’s kind of blah.