I said in "Ball Four," if there was a pill that could guarantee you would win 20 games but would take five years off of your life, players would take it. How could I be surprised? In the 1970s, half of the guys in the big leagues were taking greenies, and if we had steroids, we would have taken those, too. Were you shocked and surprised at the revelation that lots of ballplayers are taking steroids? So we sent Jeff Merron, who had 10 questions burning a hole in his pocket, to take them out and try them on Bouton.ฤก. Since Bouton deserves much, if not all, of the credit for blowing the lid off greenies, the sex lives of ballplayers and dumb moves by baseball honchos, thought it would be a good time to see what he thinks of what's going on in today's chaotic version of the U.S. "Ball Four" was a landmark of honesty and insight in sportswriting, inspiring the late Stephen Jay Gould - paleontologist and occasional baseball writer - to talk about "the Boutonian revolution in baseball biography." Jim Bouton greets former Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Tommie Davis, left, during a 1998 old-timers game. In 2001, Jim Bouton came out with the last version of his classic "Ball Four," entitled, fittingly, "Ball Four: The Final Pitch." For those of you too young to remember, "Ball Four" was the book that drew back the curtains of major league baseball, exposing the kinds of things that made few headlines before 1970, when it was published.
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