40 Facts About Jim Bouton

James Alan Bouton was an American professional baseball player.

Jim Bouton played in Major League Baseball as a pitcher for the New York Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros, and Atlanta Braves between 1962 and 1978.

Jim Bouton was a best-selling author, actor, activist, sportscaster and one of the creators of Big League Chew.

Jim Bouton played college baseball at Western Michigan University, before signing his first professional contract with the Yankees.

Jim Bouton was a member of the 1962 World Series champions, appeared in the 1963 MLB All-Star Game, and won both of his starts in the 1964 World Series.

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Jim Bouton authored the 1970 baseball book Ball Four, which was a combination diary of his 1969 season and memoir of his years with the Yankees, Pilots, and Astros.

Jim Bouton was born in Newark, New Jersey, the son of Gertrude and George Hempstead Jim Bouton, an executive.

Jim Bouton grew up as a fan of the New York Giants in Rochelle Park, New Jersey, where he lived until the age of 13.

Jim Bouton lived with his family in Ridgewood, New Jersey until he was 15, when his family relocated to Homewood, Illinois.

Jim Bouton enrolled at Bloom High School, where he played for the school's baseball team.

Jim Bouton was nicknamed "Warm-Up Jim Bouton" because he never got to play in a game, serving much of his time as a benchwarmer.

In summer leagues, Jim Bouton did not throw particularly hard, but he got batters out by mixing conventional pitches with the knuckleball that he had experimented with since childhood.

Jim Bouton attended Western Michigan University, and pitched for the Western Michigan Broncos baseball team.

Jim Bouton signed with the Yankees as an amateur free agent in 1959.

Jim Bouton came to be known for his cap flying off his head at the completion of his delivery to the plate, as well as for his uniform number 56, a number usually assigned in spring training to players designated for the minor leagues.

Jim Bouton wore number 56 throughout most of his major league career.

Jim Bouton did not play in the Yankees' 1962 World Series victory over the San Francisco Giants, although he had originally been slated to start Game 7.

In October 1968, Jim Bouton joined a committee of American sportsmen who traveled to the 1968 Summer Olympics, in Mexico City, to protest the involvement of apartheid South Africa.

In 1969, the expansion Seattle Pilots signed Jim Bouton and used him almost exclusively out of the bullpen.

Jim Bouton agreed; he had taken some notes during the 1968 season with a similar goal.

For example, when Jim Bouton got his first shutout win as a Yankee, he describes Mantle laying a "red carpet" of white towels leading directly to Jim Bouton's locker in his honor.

Controversy and book sales enabled Jim Bouton to write a sequel, I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally, in which he discussed both the controversies and reactions to Ball Four, and the end of his original pitching career and his transition to becoming a New York sportscaster.

Jim Bouton retired midway through the 1970 season, shortly after the Astros sent him down to the minor leagues.

In 1973, Jim Bouton published a collection of manager tales, including one by Jim Bouton himself about Joe Schultz his manager with the Seattle Pilots.

Decades later, Bouton would have a brief one-line cameo as a pitching coach in the 2010 James L Brooks film How Do You Know.

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Jim Bouton went on the college lecture circuit, delivering humorous talks on his experiences.

Jim Bouton authored a sequel, I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally, and later updated the original book with a new extended postscript that provided a ten-year update, dubbed Ball Five.

Jim Bouton skipped the 1976 season to work on the TV series, but he returned to the diamond in 1977 when Bill Veeck signed him to a minor league contract with the Chicago White Sox.

Jim Bouton was winless for a White Sox farm club; a stint in the Mexican League and a return to Portland followed.

Jim Bouton's winding return to the majors was chronicled in a book by sportswriter Terry Pluto, The Greatest Summer.

Once his baseball career ended a second time, Jim Bouton became one of the inventors of "Big League Chew", a shredded bubblegum designed to resemble chewing tobacco and sold in a tobacco-like pouch.

Jim Bouton co-authored Strike Zone and edited an anthology about managers, entitled I Managed Good, But Boy Did They Play Bad.

In July 1998, Jim Bouton, sporting his familiar number 56, received a standing ovation when he took the mound at Yankee Stadium.

Jim Bouton was inducted into the Baseball Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals in 2001.

In 1983, Jim Bouton's ex-wife teamed up with Nancy Marshall, the former wife of pitcher Mike Marshall, to write a tell-all book called Home Games.

Jim Bouton should ask herself how did she not see these things.

In 2012, Jim Bouton had a stroke that did not impair him physically but damaged his memory and speaking.

Jim Bouton promoted the Vintage Base Ball Federation to form vintage clubs and leagues internationally, to codify the rules and equipment of its 19th-century origins, and to organize competitions.

Jim Bouton was a delegate to the 1972 Democratic National Convention for George McGovern.

Jim Bouton died at home on July 10,2019, after weeks of hospice care for cerebral amyloid angiopathy, at age 80.