He truly broke out in 1963, starting 30 of the 40 games in which he appeared, compiling a record of 21-7 and posting a fantastic 2.53 ERA.
A combination of good pitching and some untimely injuries to established Yankees pitchers allowed Bouton to make the defending World Series champs out of spring training in 1962.īouton pitched in 36 games that season, serving as a swingman, to modest results, but he did not pitch in the Yankees’ World Series victory over the Giants that October. The Yankees liked what they saw and gave Bouton a $30,000 bonus to sign in 1958. Bouton had been suffering from cerebral amyloid angiopathy, which is linked to dementia, for the past several years.īouton was born in New Jersey in 1939 and was raised in Chicago before going on to pitch at Western Michigan University. Jim Bouton, an ace for the late dynasty, pennant-winning Yankees, an outcast on the hapless 1969 Seattle Pilots, and the author of “Ball Four,” arguably the greatest baseball book of all time, has died at the age of 80. Both the world of baseball and the world of literature has lost a titanic figure.
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