Printable Biography of Jim Bouton

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This New York Yankee 20-game winner, author, TV Sportscaster, actor, inventor, and businessman, is also a major league speaker. His presentation is a highly entertaining combination of anecdotes, insights and inspiration, tailored to his audience. And he's very very funny.

In 1963, Jim Bouton won 21 games for the New York Yankees and made the all-star team. In 1964, he won 18 games and beat the Cardinals twice in the World Series. In 1970, Jim wrote Ball Four, the funny, irreverent, all-time bestseller which revealed baseball players as human beings. Ball Four was recently selected by the New York Public Library as one of the "Books of the Century." In 1970, Jim retired from baseball and became a TV sportscaster in New York where he helped WABC-TV, and then WCBS-TV, climb to 1st place in the ratings. During the 70's he also wrote a sequel to Ball Four entitled I'm Glad You Didn't Take It Personally, won good reviews in a movie called The Long Goodbye, and created, wrote and acted in a network situation comedy based on his book.

In 1978, Jim Bouton made a comeback to baseball with the Atlanta Braves. Gambling his television career for a dream, he rode hot buses and ate cold hamburgers for two years in the minor leagues before he was called up by the Atlanta Braves. When the 39 year old knuckleballer beat the San Francisco Giants 4-1, it was his first major league win in eight years.

During his comeback Jim Bouton invented Big League Chew, shredded bubble gum in a pouch, for ballplayers who want to look right without getting sick. Big League Chew, which has replaced chewing tobacco at many high schools and colleges, is one of the most popular bubble gums on the market.

In 1996, Jim Bouton received the highest honor of his career when he was featured in The Sports 100, "The One Hundred Most Important People in American Sports History," published by Macmillan. This book, which covers 150 years, contains only 21 people from the world of baseball.

Jim Bouton believes in focusing on the process as a way to achieve goals. He encourages his audience to think like athletes, to get into the fun of the enterprise, the challenge of long odds, the satisfaction in details, the thrill of extraordinary effort, the joy of work. It was his love of a challenge that led to his unprecedented comeback to the major leagues at the age of 39, after an eight year retirement. "The irony," says Jim, "is that by focusing on the process you reach the goals more often."