Jim Bouton

Jim Bouton was an American baseball pitcher who worked as an author, actor and sportscaster. Born in Newark, New Jersey, he played college baseball at Western Michigan University and signed with the New York Yankees, beginning his major league career in 1962. Pitching for the Yankees, Seattle Pilots, Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves from 1962 to 1978, he was part of a Yankees team that won the 1962 World Series, appeared in the 1963 All-Star Game and started twice in the 1964 World Series, winning both games. He later relied on a knuckleball. Bouton wrote Ball Four, published in 1970, a diary and memoir that made him a best-selling author, and he followed it with other books. After retiring as a player, he worked as a New York sportscaster and acted, including the role of Terry Lennox in Robert Altman's film The Long Goodbye (1973) and the lead in the CBS series Ball Four in 1976. He died in 2019.