Jim and Johnny

Ball Four is, by far, my favorite baseball book, and even that may be praise too faint: it's one of my favorite books. And I read an awful lot.

I first read Ball Four not long after it came out; probably around 1972 or 1973, when I was 11 or 12 years old. I wasn't an especially advanced or "cool" kid about matters carnal, and I don't recall being surprised or disenchanted when reading about the drunken escapades of famous ballplayers. Mickey Mantle wasn't my hero, but even if he was, he didn't seem diminished by what Jim Bouton wrote about him.

The man who I thought was the true exemplar of so much that seemed stupid and silly about baseball was

Sal "The Barber" Maglie, who pitched for the Giants, Dodgers, and Indians in the 1950s (he also pitched in 1945), compiling a lifetime record of 119-62 with a 3.15 ERA. In 1950, when Maglie's career really began, he was already 33 years old. It was an extraordinary old-age run; twice he was the Cy Young runner-up, and three times he finished among the top 10 in the MVP race. The most objective stats are even more impressive. For example, in 1950, 1951, and 1956, at the age of 39, he led the NL in Adjusted ERA+.

Maglie might have been a great pitcher, but in Ball Four he's an exemplar of how those who can do often don't have a clue how to teach what they do. Maglie was the Pilots pitching coach in 1969, and a hint of what a lousy coach he was comes in spring training. Bouton describes a meeting with him:

The meeting with Maglie was disappointing, largely, I guess, because he was my hero when I was a kid and I expected a lot out of him ... I thought Sal Maglie might turn out to be another Johnny Sain. Afraid not. Maglie started out by saying, 'Look, you guys got to concentrate out there. You're not concentrating.' Now what the hell does that mean? There are about thirty pitchers here, young and old, and not one of them isn't concentrating when he's pitching.

Bouton provides about 20 other examples of Maglie's ... lack of wisdom as a coach, and the first 10 times I read Ball Four that's what stuck with me, because Bouton has a talent for making the stupidity very, very funny. It's exasperating for him to deal with as a player, but as a writer he handles Maglie beautifully.

Meanwhile, I almost completely missed Maglie's counterpoint, who's right there in the early excerpt about Maglie: Johnny Sain. Bouton doesn't spare his praise for Sain, who coached Bouton when he came up with the Yankees in the early 1960s. He mentions Sain early and often, often quoting him. In his March 8 entry, for example, he writes, <blockquote>Sain is not only the greatest pitching coach who ever lived, he's a man who tells the truth, and what he says, believe it or not, is that sportswriters actually play a part in deciding who's going to make the team ... Sain says if there's not a lot of difference between players the job will go to the guy who seems to be getting the most attention in the newspapers.</blockquote>

When I started researching Sain, I started with Ball Four. I'd read the damned book time and time again but had been reading for laughs and comfort, not for information. I finally caught on to what a major unseen character Sain had been in Ball Four through Amazon.com's terrific "Search Inside" feature. That was when I noticed all the comments about Sain. And the intrigue began.