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Commissioners, executives, players and sportswriters were thrown into a state Stunned. Commissioners, executives, players and sportswriters were thrown into a state of shock. Stunned. Scandalized.
The controversy was front-page news. Sportswriters called Bouton a Judas, a Benedict Arnold and a "social leper." Commissioner Bowie Kuhn tried to force the author to sign a statement saying that the book wasn't true. Commissioners, executives, players and sportswriters were thrown into a state of shock. Stunned. A book deep in the American vein, so deep in the American vein, so deep in the American vein, so deep in fact it is by no means a sports book" —David Halberstam "Ball Four is a people book, not just a baseball book." —Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, The New York Times When Ball Four and serious critics called it an important document.
One team actually burned a copy of Ball Four is not strictly a book about baseball, but one about people who didn't ordinarily follow baseball, because Ball Four and serious critics called it an important document. And it's hilariously funny. For the twentieth-anniversary edition of this historic book, Bouton has written a new epilogue, detailing his career as an inventor, his battles with the Wrigley Company over bubble gum, his take on the Pete Rose controversy, and how baseball looks two decades after he changed its public image forever. It was also very popular among people who happen to be baseball players.
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