The diary of a major league baseball player during one season reveals the game's venal and foolish aspects.

The beloved baseball classic now available in paperback, with a new foreword from Jim Bouton's wife, Paula Kurman. When Ball Four was first published in 1970, it hit the sports world like a lightning bolt. Commissioners, executives, and players were shocked. Sportswriters called author Jim Bouton a traitor and "social leper." Commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force him to declare the book untrue. Fans, however, loved the book. And serious critics called it an important social document. Following his death, Bouton's landmark book has remained popular, and his legacy lives on through its many readers, including those who don't ordinarily follow baseball. For the updated edition of this historic book, Bouton wrote a new epilogue detailing his perspective on how baseball has changed since the last edition was released.

The 50th Anniversary edition of “the book that changed baseball” (NPR), chosen by Time magazine as one of the “100 Greatest Non-Fiction” books. When Ball Four was published in 1970, it created a firestorm. Bouton was called a Judas, a Benedict Arnold, and a “social leper” for having violated the “sanctity of the clubhouse.” Baseball commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force Bouton to sign a statement saying the book wasn’t true. Ballplayers, most of whom hadn’t read it, denounced the book. It was even banned by a few libraries. Almost everyone else, however, loved Ball Four. Fans liked discovering that athletes were real people—often wildly funny people. David Halberstam, who won a Pulitzer for his reporting on Vietnam, wrote a piece in Harper’s that said of Bouton: “He has written . . . a book deep in the American vein, so deep in fact that it is by no means a sports book.” Today Ball Four has taken on another role—as a time capsule of life in the sixties. “It is not just a diary of Bouton’s 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros,” says sportswriter Jim Caple. “It’s a vibrant, funny, telling history of an era that seems even further away than four decades. To call it simply a ‘tell all book’ is like describing The Grapes of Wrath as a book about harvesting peaches in California.” Includes a new foreword by Jim Bouton's wife, Paula Kurman “An irreverent, best-selling book that angered baseball’s hierarchy and changed the way journalists and fans viewed the sports world.” —The Washington Post

Recent research has led to a deeper understanding of the nature and consequences of interactions between materials on an atomic scale. The results have resonated throughout the field of tribology. For example, new applications require detailed understanding of the tribological process on macro- and microscales and new knowledge guides the rational

Focusing on the ten most influential baseball books of all time, this volume explores how these landmark works changed the game itself and made waves in American society at large. Satchel Paige's Pitchin' Man informed the dialog surrounding integration. Ring Lardner's You Know Me Al changed the way Americans viewed their baseball heroes and influenced the work of Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Bill James's Baseball Abstract transformed the way managers--including those in fields other than baseball--analyzed numbers. Pete Rose's My Story and My Prison Without Bars exposed and deepened a cultural divide that paved the way for Donald Trump.

"A rich collection of fifty-one stories and articles by Roger Kahn. Written across six decades, this volume shows Kahn's ability to describe the athletes he profiled as they truly were in a manner neither compromised nor cruel but always authentic and up close"--

A collection of one act plays.

A famous expose of baseball behind the scenes has been expanded to include Bouton's comeback to the big leagues, the breakup of his marriage, and his current career as a writer and television personality

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 I had signed a contract to play for the Seattle Pilots, but was still thinking about whether or not it was all over for me. I had been pitching for the Seattle Angels of the Pacific Coast League, and was sold to Seattle for $20,000 and was supposed to get $8,000 of that, meaning I was actually sold for $12,000. #2 In 1959, I started out in the baseball establishment. I was ready to love it. I thought big business had all the answers to any question I could ask. I signed my first major-league contract at Yankee Stadium, and when I finished the season with a 7-7 record, I collected another $10,000. #3 I was a holdout again in spring training of my second season. The Yankees were not happy, as they knew they were being unfair. I was giving out straight figures, telling everyone exactly what I’d made and what they were offering. #4 I had won 18 games and two in the World Series the year before, which was worth about an $8,000 raise. But in light of what had happened the year before, I asked for at least 30 thousand dollars.