Name: Jim Bouton on Letterman, March 16, 1982
Uploaded: 2019-07-12T02:35:45.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jim Bouton on Letterman, March 16, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-07-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Jim Bouton on Letterman, March 16, 1982' from Don Giller on Comedy Buff. Published 2019-07-12. Transcript available.

Thank you, Paul. Very nice. Welcome back to the show. My first guest, Jim Boughton.
Over
the past few years, Jim Boughton has been a writer, an actor, a sportscaster,
and a businessman.
He is best known, however, for his escapades in the game of baseball. Many of
them were
described in his controversial bestseller entitled Ball Four, and the details
of his
recent comeback are included in an updated version called Ball Five. Please
welcome
Mr. Jim Boughton.
Hello, Jim. Nice to see you, sir. I think you should... Well, that's Jim. Yeah,
that's fine.
Ball Four, people describe it maybe as one of the best sports books ever
written. I enjoyed
it. For people who may not have read it, briefly explain the premise of this
work.
Well, it was a diary of a Major League Baseball season in 1969, a diary of an
expansion team,
the Seattle Pilots. But I guess it was considered controversial because it was
the first sports
book to tell what it was really like in the locker rooms and the dugouts, what
the players
actually said on the bus. And it used the language of the locker room and told
some things that
hadn't been told before in a sports book. What was the status of your career at
that time? Because
most people probably remember you as pitching for the Yankees. Yeah. At that
time, I was really at the
end of the line. I had come up with a knuckleball and I was trying to hang on
with the Seattle
Pilots. I was 30 years old and I was a very marginal player. Yeah. And this was
a daily account of your
live with the then-expansion Seattle Pilots. Yes. Quoting the players, saying
some very funny
and outrageous things, the kinds of things ballplayers say. And I think we know
how this
was received. Has this worn off? Do the players now like you any better?
Well, I think there will probably be a handful of old timers who will never
forgive me
for writing the book. But most of the younger players today are anxious to meet
me. And they
read ball four when they were in high school, you see. Yeah. Ten years ago. And
they come up to me and
say, hey, I, you know, wanted to meet the guy that told us what it would be
like if we ever got to the
major league. So there's always a mixed reaction to me on the team.
But you feel like you violated one basic code of the tribe, huh? Well, they,
they say that I did. And I guess you could say, see, there's a sign in every
clubhouse. It says,
what you say here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here.
It's the same sign
they have in the CIA. Now, say, a superstar of the day, if Mickey Mantle, for
example, had written
the book, would he have had the same trouble? No, no, no. Part of the problem
was that I was a marginal
guy. And what right did I have to say all these things? Um, if Mickey had
written the book, it would
have been, uh, you know, a great book. And, uh, you know, Mickey might have
said a few things he
shouldn't have said, but by and large, it was a good book. Who were some of the,
uh, how, how many years
ago did it, was it first published? Oh, it came out in 1970, so it's, uh, 12
years old. Who were,
who were your favorite characters still from the book? Oh, I think, uh, Doug Rader,
uh, Joe Schultz,
who was the manager of the Seattle Pilots. Kind of an inspirational guy, Joe?
Joe was, uh, the great
thing about, great thing about Joe was he was sort of the opposite of Vince Lombardi.
He used to feel
sorry for us when we would lose, you know. He'd, uh, he'd call us in for a
meeting and tell us that,
uh, you know, we just weren't that good and not to worry about it. Now, Vince Lombardi
was winning
as everything and Joe was kind of be nice to win occasionally. That's right.
Yeah, exactly. And, uh,
Doug Rader, who I remember as a third baseman for the Astros, right? Yes. He's
now a, uh, manager
of the Hawaii AAA team, one of the, uh, San Diego Padres. What kind of things
would, uh, Doug do? Doug
liked to, uh, make, uh, his teammates throw up. It's a little known category in
baseball lore. Uh-huh.
Very disgusting. Yeah. Especially during a ball game, if he could get one of
the players to throw
up in the dugout, that was a big, uh, uh, get a big kick out of that. I know, I
know the kids at
home are getting the pencil and paper ready, so what are some of the ways Doug
would work this out?
Uh, there's some very disgusting things. Well, take, take a shot at one here.
Oh.
Well, one time I saw him take a, a, uh, drink out of a garbage can and all the
garbage came falling
all over him and down his face. That was pretty disgusting. Or he would, uh, he's
always chewing
tobacco, you know, and spitting it all over the place. And, uh, one time I saw
him spit it up on the
ceiling. And when it oozed, oozed on down, he tried to catch it in his mouth.
Catch it in his mouth, yes.
Certainly poetry, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, we have to pause here, Jim. We'll
be right back. I want to
talk about your, uh, comeback and also your days with the, uh, Mavericks in, uh,
Spokane or Portland?
Okay. We'll be right back.
Thank you, Paul. Jim Boughton, uh, author of Baseball Player. Um, now you, you
decided to make a
comeback. Um, and the resentment that you encountered from writing the book,
was that a stumbling block in
getting back into organized baseball? Um, a little bit. There weren't too many
teams willing to give
me a chance. Uh, Bill Veck gave me a shot at, uh, the White Sox farm team and I
didn't do too well
there. And then Ted Turner gave me a shot at his farm team and I, I did pretty
well and eventually got
called up. How old were you when you decided to go back into organized baseball?
38. And how long had
it been since you played professionally? Um, eight, seven years, eight years
actually when I finally
made it. It was eight years since, uh, I had played in 1970. Now, what was the
motivation to do that?
Because to me it sounds from the outside like a guy chasing a dream that he's
not going to get. Oh,
well, it was partly that. Um, just, um, I guess basically a midlife crisis. I
needed to find myself
as a person and I was going through a very difficult time and, and, uh, it was
just one of those crazy
things. You know, you think if I just go do this, my life will somehow get
straightened out.
On the other hand, there are successful pitchers who are now even older than
that, right?
Yeah, but you got to stay with it. Uh, you know, year after year to, to stay
out eight years,
the only way it was possible for me to go back was because I threw a trick
pitch called a knuckleball,
which doesn't require any strength, but a great deal of patience. Uh, tell us
about your days with the
Portland Mavericks. Tell us who they are and what they are. The Portland Mavericks
were a team of,
uh, ne'er-do-wells and, uh, renegades who had been released by other
organizations for various offenses and,
uh, uh, they played for this, uh, independent team in the Class A Northwest
League and, uh,
they would allow anybody to try out for the team. And so, uh, when I had been
released by, uh, the Knoxville
White Sox and the Durango, uh, Mexico Tarantulas or whatever, uh, I went to
Portland, Oregon and the
Mavs had, would, you know, would, would allow me on the team. And, uh, I played
for the Portland
Mavericks and, uh, it was a great team because, because it was sort of anything
goes. Um, the manager
met me at the airport when I first joined the team. He said, "We got one rule
on the club and it's no
smoking dope on the front of the bus." Which I thought was fair enough.
I had a team mascot, I understand. We had, uh, yes, we had all kinds of things.
Actually,
the team, well, the team wore red uniforms for one thing, which made us look
like devils with black
trim. And we wore these red bandanas around our neck. And, uh, when the
opposing pitcher would get
knocked out of the ball game, the entire team would stand up along the first
baseline and sing, uh, two
courses of happy trails to you. And, uh, when the other team would be having a
rally, uh, we would,
uh, uh, suddenly, somebody would accidentally throw a baseball all out of the
bullpen. And we had a,
a black laboratory retriever puppy trained to chase this baseball. And he would
bolt onto the field,
chasing after this ball. And then, of course, the game would stop. And then the
cops, the opposing
players, and the police would spend a half an hour trying to get PL Maverick.
That was
his name after a famous racing dog, trying to get him off the field. And he, he
had boundless energy
and, uh, he had great moves. Herschel Walker.
And they couldn't catch the dog. And, uh, do you want me to tell you about his
greatest night?
Yeah, let's hear it. Yes. I have a hunch what it might be. So here's this,
here's this, uh, seventh inning, big rally going on. We're getting beat and we
want to end this rally.
And so we send PL Maverick out on the field. And this is in front of a crowd of
10,000 people who
came there. They said, we used to draw, outdraw a major league team some nights.
So PL is, uh,
cavorting in the outfield and they can't get him off. And finally, after about
a 20 minute chase,
he's, he's, he's exhausted now. He's got to get off the field. Performer that
he is. After racing
around center field for 20 minutes, he made a beeline for home plate. And in
the vicinity of home plate,
uh, did his job. Uh huh. And, uh, the fans gave him a standing ovation. Yeah. I
saw, um, I saw Doug Rader
do the same thing once. Uh, we're going to pause here. I want to take a look at
your, uh, comeback against, uh,
the Dodgers down in Atlanta a couple of years back. We'll do it.
Uh, Jim Bowden is with us. And we're going to take a look at, uh, I guess your
first, uh, professional
league start after a seven, eight year layoff, right? First major league game,
right. Against?
The Dodgers. And, uh, Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. Fulton County Stadium.
And you must have
been very excited. I was. My heart was pounding under my uniform shirt. What
year is this, Jim?
We'll take a look at it now. 1978. 1978. This is in September. Watch the
monitors at home. Of
course, the TV will do. Uh, can you, you can stay right there if you will. I
want to ask you a couple
of questions about the Dodgers' reaction to your, uh, comeback there. We're
going to pause now for
station identification. We'll be back to take a look at the world's cheapest
movies. Also dinosaur expert
Jim Jensen will join us and steam train Maury right after this.
Thank you. Welcome back to the extravaganza. Jim Bouton is here. We just saw
you strike out Davey
Lopes and, uh, in your comeback. What was your record?
I was one in three, but I pitched three good games.
Uh-huh. And, uh, what was the reaction to the, uh, I mean, I could have, uh, I
lost two to one.
Yeah. They were actually close games, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what was the
reaction to the guys
you were opposing? Um, I was surprised, uh, that they were very negative about
it. I think they
resented the fact that somebody had been out for eight years and then came back
to play. Number one. Number two was the
book.
Yeah. Yeah. So what was the reaction to the guys you were opposing? Um, I was
surprised, uh, that they were very negative about it. I think they resented the
fact that somebody had been out for eight years and then came back to play.
Number one. Number two was the book.
But, uh, number three was the fact that I was getting them out with junk and
garbage and I wasn't supposed to do that. Yeah. You know, you have to throw the
ball hard like a man or, you know. Yeah. So combination of things.
Was it tough for you to walk away from it again a second time? No, I really, I
really got it out of my system the second time and, uh, it was, it was easy
enough. Now, what we have here, Jim, I guess is the, the result of endless
hours in the bullpen thinking up ideas. Tell us what this stuff is. Oh, that's,
um, that's shredded bubble gum in a pouch.
Called Big League Chew and it was developed out in the bullpen in Portland,
Oregon. When I was playing ball with these kids, uh, we were chewing tobacco
and the guys were complaining about how disgusting the tobacco was and the kid
sitting next to me by the name of Rob Nelson said, there ought to be something
that looks as good as tobacco but tastes good like gum. Well, you found it here,
Jim. Boy, uh, this would be good with clam sauce, I think, wouldn't it? Um, now,
I gotta tell you, if I were a little, little leaguer, I'd buy that.
Buy this stuff by the case. I think you got a hit here, uh, doing pretty well,
I guess? Yes, it, uh, doing very well. And, and the name of the new book is
called Ball Five? Ball Four plus Ball Five. It's the original book plus an
update at the end. Terrific. I'm very glad you could be here tonight. Thank you,
Jim. Jim Bowden. Thank you, Jim.
Thank you, Jim.
Thank you, Jim.

Jim Bouton on Letterman, March 16, 1982

Thank you, Paul. Very nice. Welcome back to the show. My first guest, Jim Boughton.
Over
the past few years, Jim Boughton has been a writer, an actor, a sportscaster,
and a businessman.
He is best known, however, for his escapades in the game of baseball. Many of
them were
described in his controversial bestseller entitled Ball Four, and the details
of his
recent comeback are included in an updated version called Ball Five. Please
welcome
Mr. Jim Boughton.
Hello, Jim. Nice to see you, sir. I think you should... Well, that's Jim. Yeah,
that's fine.
Ball Four, people describe it maybe as one of the best sports books ever
written. I enjoyed
it. For people who may not have read it, briefly explain the premise of this
work.
Well, it was a diary of a Major League Baseball season in 1969, a diary of an
expansion team,
the Seattle Pilots. But I guess it was considered controversial because it was
the first sports
book to tell what it was really like in the locker rooms and the dugouts, what
the players
actually said on the bus. And it used the language of the locker room and told
some things that
hadn't been told before in a sports book. What was the status of your career at
that time? Because
most people probably remember you as pitching for the Yankees. Yeah. At that
time, I was really at the
end of the line. I had come up with a knuckleball and I was trying to hang on
with the Seattle
Pilots. I was 30 years old and I was a very marginal player. Yeah. And this was
a daily account of your
live with the then-expansion Seattle Pilots. Yes. Quoting the players, saying
some very funny
and outrageous things, the kinds of things ballplayers say. And I think we know
how this
was received. Has this worn off? Do the players now like you any better?
Well, I think there will probably be a handful of old timers who will never
forgive me
for writing the book. But most of the younger players today are anxious to meet
me. And they
read ball four when they were in high school, you see. Yeah. Ten years ago. And
they come up to me and
say, hey, I, you know, wanted to meet the guy that told us what it would be
like if we ever got to the
major league. So there's always a mixed reaction to me on the team.
But you feel like you violated one basic code of the tribe, huh? Well, they,
they say that I did. And I guess you could say, see, there's a sign in every
clubhouse. It says,
what you say here, what you hear here, when you leave here, let it stay here.
It's the same sign
they have in the CIA. Now, say, a superstar of the day, if Mickey Mantle, for
example, had written
the book, would he have had the same trouble? No, no, no. Part of the problem
was that I was a marginal
guy. And what right did I have to say all these things? Um, if Mickey had
written the book, it would
have been, uh, you know, a great book. And, uh, you know, Mickey might have
said a few things he
shouldn't have said, but by and large, it was a good book. Who were some of the,
uh, how, how many years
ago did it, was it first published? Oh, it came out in 1970, so it's, uh, 12
years old. Who were,
who were your favorite characters still from the book? Oh, I think, uh, Doug Rader,
uh, Joe Schultz,
who was the manager of the Seattle Pilots. Kind of an inspirational guy, Joe?
Joe was, uh, the great
thing about, great thing about Joe was he was sort of the opposite of Vince Lombardi.
He used to feel
sorry for us when we would lose, you know. He'd, uh, he'd call us in for a
meeting and tell us that,
uh, you know, we just weren't that good and not to worry about it. Now, Vince Lombardi
was winning
as everything and Joe was kind of be nice to win occasionally. That's right.
Yeah, exactly. And, uh,
Doug Rader, who I remember as a third baseman for the Astros, right? Yes. He's
now a, uh, manager
of the Hawaii AAA team, one of the, uh, San Diego Padres. What kind of things
would, uh, Doug do? Doug
liked to, uh, make, uh, his teammates throw up. It's a little known category in
baseball lore. Uh-huh.
Very disgusting. Yeah. Especially during a ball game, if he could get one of
the players to throw
up in the dugout, that was a big, uh, uh, get a big kick out of that. I know, I
know the kids at
home are getting the pencil and paper ready, so what are some of the ways Doug
would work this out?
Uh, there's some very disgusting things. Well, take, take a shot at one here.
Oh.
Well, one time I saw him take a, a, uh, drink out of a garbage can and all the
garbage came falling
all over him and down his face. That was pretty disgusting. Or he would, uh, he's
always chewing
tobacco, you know, and spitting it all over the place. And, uh, one time I saw
him spit it up on the
ceiling. And when it oozed, oozed on down, he tried to catch it in his mouth.
Catch it in his mouth, yes.
Certainly poetry, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, we have to pause here, Jim. We'll
be right back. I want to
talk about your, uh, comeback and also your days with the, uh, Mavericks in, uh,
Spokane or Portland?
Okay. We'll be right back.
Thank you, Paul. Jim Boughton, uh, author of Baseball Player. Um, now you, you
decided to make a
comeback. Um, and the resentment that you encountered from writing the book,
was that a stumbling block in
getting back into organized baseball? Um, a little bit. There weren't too many
teams willing to give
me a chance. Uh, Bill Veck gave me a shot at, uh, the White Sox farm team and I
didn't do too well
there. And then Ted Turner gave me a shot at his farm team and I, I did pretty
well and eventually got
called up. How old were you when you decided to go back into organized baseball?
38. And how long had
it been since you played professionally? Um, eight, seven years, eight years
actually when I finally
made it. It was eight years since, uh, I had played in 1970. Now, what was the
motivation to do that?
Because to me it sounds from the outside like a guy chasing a dream that he's
not going to get. Oh,
well, it was partly that. Um, just, um, I guess basically a midlife crisis. I
needed to find myself
as a person and I was going through a very difficult time and, and, uh, it was
just one of those crazy
things. You know, you think if I just go do this, my life will somehow get
straightened out.
On the other hand, there are successful pitchers who are now even older than
that, right?
Yeah, but you got to stay with it. Uh, you know, year after year to, to stay
out eight years,
the only way it was possible for me to go back was because I threw a trick
pitch called a knuckleball,
which doesn't require any strength, but a great deal of patience. Uh, tell us
about your days with the
Portland Mavericks. Tell us who they are and what they are. The Portland Mavericks
were a team of,
uh, ne'er-do-wells and, uh, renegades who had been released by other
organizations for various offenses and,
uh, uh, they played for this, uh, independent team in the Class A Northwest
League and, uh,
they would allow anybody to try out for the team. And so, uh, when I had been
released by, uh, the Knoxville
White Sox and the Durango, uh, Mexico Tarantulas or whatever, uh, I went to
Portland, Oregon and the
Mavs had, would, you know, would, would allow me on the team. And, uh, I played
for the Portland
Mavericks and, uh, it was a great team because, because it was sort of anything
goes. Um, the manager
met me at the airport when I first joined the team. He said, "We got one rule
on the club and it's no
smoking dope on the front of the bus." Which I thought was fair enough.
I had a team mascot, I understand. We had, uh, yes, we had all kinds of things.
Actually,
the team, well, the team wore red uniforms for one thing, which made us look
like devils with black
trim. And we wore these red bandanas around our neck. And, uh, when the
opposing pitcher would get
knocked out of the ball game, the entire team would stand up along the first
baseline and sing, uh, two
courses of happy trails to you. And, uh, when the other team would be having a
rally, uh, we would,
uh, uh, suddenly, somebody would accidentally throw a baseball all out of the
bullpen. And we had a,
a black laboratory retriever puppy trained to chase this baseball. And he would
bolt onto the field,
chasing after this ball. And then, of course, the game would stop. And then the
cops, the opposing
players, and the police would spend a half an hour trying to get PL Maverick.
That was
his name after a famous racing dog, trying to get him off the field. And he, he
had boundless energy
and, uh, he had great moves. Herschel Walker.
And they couldn't catch the dog. And, uh, do you want me to tell you about his
greatest night?
Yeah, let's hear it. Yes. I have a hunch what it might be. So here's this,
here's this, uh, seventh inning, big rally going on. We're getting beat and we
want to end this rally.
And so we send PL Maverick out on the field. And this is in front of a crowd of
10,000 people who
came there. They said, we used to draw, outdraw a major league team some nights.
So PL is, uh,
cavorting in the outfield and they can't get him off. And finally, after about
a 20 minute chase,
he's, he's, he's exhausted now. He's got to get off the field. Performer that
he is. After racing
around center field for 20 minutes, he made a beeline for home plate. And in
the vicinity of home plate,
uh, did his job. Uh huh. And, uh, the fans gave him a standing ovation. Yeah. I
saw, um, I saw Doug Rader
do the same thing once. Uh, we're going to pause here. I want to take a look at
your, uh, comeback against, uh,
the Dodgers down in Atlanta a couple of years back. We'll do it.
Uh, Jim Bowden is with us. And we're going to take a look at, uh, I guess your
first, uh, professional
league start after a seven, eight year layoff, right? First major league game,
right. Against?
The Dodgers. And, uh, Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta. Fulton County Stadium.
And you must have
been very excited. I was. My heart was pounding under my uniform shirt. What
year is this, Jim?
We'll take a look at it now. 1978. 1978. This is in September. Watch the
monitors at home. Of
course, the TV will do. Uh, can you, you can stay right there if you will. I
want to ask you a couple
of questions about the Dodgers' reaction to your, uh, comeback there. We're
going to pause now for
station identification. We'll be back to take a look at the world's cheapest
movies. Also dinosaur expert
Jim Jensen will join us and steam train Maury right after this.
Thank you. Welcome back to the extravaganza. Jim Bouton is here. We just saw
you strike out Davey
Lopes and, uh, in your comeback. What was your record?
I was one in three, but I pitched three good games.
Uh-huh. And, uh, what was the reaction to the, uh, I mean, I could have, uh, I
lost two to one.
Yeah. They were actually close games, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what was the
reaction to the guys
you were opposing? Um, I was surprised, uh, that they were very negative about
it. I think they
resented the fact that somebody had been out for eight years and then came back
to play. Number one. Number two was the
book.
Yeah. Yeah. So what was the reaction to the guys you were opposing? Um, I was
surprised, uh, that they were very negative about it. I think they resented the
fact that somebody had been out for eight years and then came back to play.
Number one. Number two was the book.
But, uh, number three was the fact that I was getting them out with junk and
garbage and I wasn't supposed to do that. Yeah. You know, you have to throw the
ball hard like a man or, you know. Yeah. So combination of things.
Was it tough for you to walk away from it again a second time? No, I really, I
really got it out of my system the second time and, uh, it was, it was easy
enough. Now, what we have here, Jim, I guess is the, the result of endless
hours in the bullpen thinking up ideas. Tell us what this stuff is. Oh, that's,
um, that's shredded bubble gum in a pouch.
Called Big League Chew and it was developed out in the bullpen in Portland,
Oregon. When I was playi