Foul Ball

by Jim Bouton Narrated by Jim Seybert, Lesa Lockford

Overview

With his trademark wit and distinctive voice, legendary Ball Four author Jim Bouton recounts his battle against local elites' efforts to replace Wahconah Park, one of the oldest parks in the United States, against the wishes and votes of local citizens. But Foul Ball is more than just a lively romp about saving an old ballpark near Bouton's home in Massachusetts. In a detailed diary-his first since Ball Four-Bouton takes us along on his wild ride into the teeth of corporate malfeasance, anti-democratic processes, the tyranny of a one-newspaper town, and the real reason why the good old boys wanted to build a new stadium. For the first time in two decades, enjoy Foul Ball as never before with freshly edited content and a new foreword from Jim Bouton's wife, Paula.c

Editorial Reviews

The Capital Times

"Erin Brokovich meets Fields of Dreams."

David Kipen

"An irresistible story whose outcome remains in doubt until the very end. Not just a funny book, but a patriotic one."
—San Francisco Chronicle

John Feinstein

"Now in his fifth decade of telling the truth no matter the consequences, Bouton proves that a badly-run city government can be just as dangerous---and just as hilarious---as a badly-run baseball team."

"What it shares with Ball Four is Bouton's humor, his sense of what's right and wrong, and a remarkable tale that---if you didn't trust the author---you would find difficult to believe."
—AOL Sports

Kirkus Reviews

Populist maverick, pariah of professional baseball bigwigs, Bouton (Strike Zone, 1994, etc.) tells of his efforts to preserve-and a coven of movers-and-shakers and good-old-boys to abandon-a historic baseball park in Pittsfield, Massachusetts. When it comes to baseball parks, writes Bouton, " 'If we build it, they will come' has evolved into 'If we don't build it, they will go,' " referring to the rash of new, economically dubious stadiums. Pittsfield's Wahconah Park, built in 1892, one of the oldest in the US, was about to become another of these statistics, until Bouton and his comrade-in-arms Chip Elitzer decided to offer an alternative to the $18.5-million, pork-barrel proposal for a new stadium: "We'll spend private dollars to renovate an existing ballpark for a locally owned team." Bouton-as zealous to entertain his readers with tangy one-liners as he is in uncovering the myriad corruption, deals, and fixes that attended the drive for a new stadium-adroitly manages a number of stories at once. There's the backroom power-brokering, ego-strutting, and just plain greed of making taxpayers foot the bill for a stadium they have time-and-again voted down in referendums; the historic importance of old ballparks, with their quirks and intimacy and evocation of the game's past; and an environmental subplot: the land being touted for the new stadium may be a toxic dump. Capping it with a ballpark would put paid to the millions of dollars it would cost to clean it up. (Bouton points fingers, too, at other infamous polluters-General Electric, for instance. After a GE lawyer was set to invest in PublicAffairs, Bouton's intended and enthusiastic publisher, PublicAffairs suddenly requested thatthe GE material be excised. Bouton smelled a rat-et voilà: a self-published work.) A good, if at times windy, story. Even if his proposal got smothered by the small-city political weight, he got the voice of Pittsfield's regular folk heard and the ballpark saved, for now.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940176442762
Publisher:	Dreamscape Media
Publication date:	05/03/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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