it, we felt, would be to put editorial omniscience between the reader and reality. Besides, we were not aiming this book at juveniles. Rate it X. The only thing we left out was repetitiveness.
The hardest part of editing Bouton’s 1,500 pages was deciding what to leave out. There was so much that was so good, so incisive, so funny, that the choices were most difficult. In the end I managed to take it down to about 650 pages. The final cut, to about 520 manuscript pages, was made by both of us at the very last. We spent eighteen hours a day together for weeks, cutting, editing, correcting, polishing. There were arguments sometimes and frayed nerves, and we came to know each other in that special, complicated way that people who have worked very hard, very closely on a project they consider important come to know each other. I’m not sure how Bouton feels about it, but I believe I came away a better man.
L EONARD S HECTER
New York City, January 1970
INTRODUCTION
FALL 1968
I’m 30 years old and I have these dreams.
I dream my knuckleball is jumping around like a Ping-Pong ball in the wind and I pitch a two-hit shutout against my old team, the New York Yankees, single home the winning run in the ninth inning and, when the game is over, take a big bow on the mound in Yankee Stadium with 60,000 people cheering wildly. After the game reporters crowd around my locker asking me to explain exactly how I did it. I don’t mind telling them.
I dream I have pitched four consecutive shutouts for the Seattle Pilots, and the Detroit Tigers decide to buy me in August for their stretch drive. It’s a natural: The Tigers give away a couple of minor-league phenoms, and the Pilots, looking to the future, discard an aging right-handed knuckleballer. I go over to Detroit and help them win the pennant with five saves and a couple of spot starts. I see myself in the back of a shiny new convertible riding down Woodward Avenue with ticker-tape and confetti covering me like snow. I see myself waving to the crowd and I can see the people waving back, smiling, shouting my name.
I dream my picture is on the cover of
Sports Illustrated
in October and they do a special “Comeback of the Year” feature on me, and all winter long I’m going to dinners and accepting trophies as the Comeback Player of the Year.
I dream all these things. I really do. So there’s no use asking me why I’m here, why a reasonably intelligent thirty-year-old man who has lost his fastball is still struggling to play baseball, holding on—literally—with his fingertips. The dreams are the answer. They’re why I wanted to be a big-league ballplayer and why I still want to get back on top again. I
enjoy
the fame of being a big-league ballplayer. I get a tremendous kick out of people wanting my autograph. In fact, I feel hurt if I go someplace where I think I should be recognized and no one asks me for it. I enjoy signing them and posing for pictures and answering reporters’ questions and having people recognize me on the street. A lot of my friends are baseball fans, as well as my family and kids I went to school with, and I get a kick out of knowing that they’re enjoying having a connection with a guy in the big leagues. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.
Like someone once asked Al Ferrara of the Dodgers why
he
wanted to be a baseball player. He said because he always wanted to see his picture on a bubblegum card. Well, me too. It’s an ego trip.
I’ve heard all the arguments against it. That there are better, more important things for a man to do than spend his time trying to throw a ball past other men who are trying to hit it with a stick. There are things like being a doctor or a teacher or working in the Peace Corps. More likely I should be devoting myself full-time to finding a way to end the war. I admit that sometimes I’m troubled by the way I make my living. I
would
like to change the world. I
would
like to have an influence on
The hardest part of editing Bouton’s 1,500 pages was deciding what to leave out. There was so much that was so good, so incisive, so funny, that the choices were most difficult. In the end I managed to take it down to about 650 pages. The final cut, to about 520 manuscript pages, was made by both of us at the very last. We spent eighteen hours a day together for weeks, cutting, editing, correcting, polishing. There were arguments sometimes and frayed nerves, and we came to know each other in that special, complicated way that people who have worked very hard, very closely on a project they consider important come to know each other. I’m not sure how Bouton feels about it, but I believe I came away a better man.
L EONARD S HECTER
New York City, January 1970
INTRODUCTION
FALL 1968
I’m 30 years old and I have these dreams.
I dream my knuckleball is jumping around like a Ping-Pong ball in the wind and I pitch a two-hit shutout against my old team, the New York Yankees, single home the winning run in the ninth inning and, when the game is over, take a big bow on the mound in Yankee Stadium with 60,000 people cheering wildly. After the game reporters crowd around my locker asking me to explain exactly how I did it. I don’t mind telling them.
I dream I have pitched four consecutive shutouts for the Seattle Pilots, and the Detroit Tigers decide to buy me in August for their stretch drive. It’s a natural: The Tigers give away a couple of minor-league phenoms, and the Pilots, looking to the future, discard an aging right-handed knuckleballer. I go over to Detroit and help them win the pennant with five saves and a couple of spot starts. I see myself in the back of a shiny new convertible riding down Woodward Avenue with ticker-tape and confetti covering me like snow. I see myself waving to the crowd and I can see the people waving back, smiling, shouting my name.
I dream my picture is on the cover of
Sports Illustrated
in October and they do a special “Comeback of the Year” feature on me, and all winter long I’m going to dinners and accepting trophies as the Comeback Player of the Year.
I dream all these things. I really do. So there’s no use asking me why I’m here, why a reasonably intelligent thirty-year-old man who has lost his fastball is still struggling to play baseball, holding on—literally—with his fingertips. The dreams are the answer. They’re why I wanted to be a big-league ballplayer and why I still want to get back on top again. I
enjoy
the fame of being a big-league ballplayer. I get a tremendous kick out of people wanting my autograph. In fact, I feel hurt if I go someplace where I think I should be recognized and no one asks me for it. I enjoy signing them and posing for pictures and answering reporters’ questions and having people recognize me on the street. A lot of my friends are baseball fans, as well as my family and kids I went to school with, and I get a kick out of knowing that they’re enjoying having a connection with a guy in the big leagues. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I do.
Like someone once asked Al Ferrara of the Dodgers why
he
wanted to be a baseball player. He said because he always wanted to see his picture on a bubblegum card. Well, me too. It’s an ego trip.
I’ve heard all the arguments against it. That there are better, more important things for a man to do than spend his time trying to throw a ball past other men who are trying to hit it with a stick. There are things like being a doctor or a teacher or working in the Peace Corps. More likely I should be devoting myself full-time to finding a way to end the war. I admit that sometimes I’m troubled by the way I make my living. I
would
like to change the world. I
would
like to have an influence on
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