There was a time when baseball players were considered role-models. Even sportswriters were in on the conspiracy, hiding things like the drinking and womanizing from an unsuspecting public. Then came Jim Bouton’s book, Ball Four. It was the first baseball tell-all that might seem tame by today’s standards, but it sent major league baseball spinning when it was first published in 1970. Bouton was an unconventional player with the New York Yankees who’s tendency to speak his mind was tolerated while he was throwing a smoking fastball. Once his arm started tiring and the fastball started to fade, he was branded a trouble-maker and shipped off to the minors. In the expansion draft of 1969, he was tagged by the Seattle Pilots to play for them. Never heard of the Seattle Pilots? That’s because after one season in Seattle, they moved to Milwaukee and changed their name to the Brewers. During the 1969 spring training and regular season, Bouton detailed notes about the happenings in Seattle, and then later on in Houston when he was traded. The observations are candid and both personal and professional as Bouton lets the reader journey inside the world of professional baseball players. This was a time before free agency and the high salaries most major leaguers earn today. At this point in time, players were often forced to work jobs in the off-season and lived much like the fans did. This was all the while having to worry about whether they would be sent down to the minors or traded, meaning the leases they signed on rental residences often cost them a good deal. Bouton exposed it all, and showed the players as they really were. They weren’t iconic heroes, but everyday men who often seemed to act like high school boys who never grew up. Bouton named names, and he drew on his memories with the Yankees when it was appropriate as well. This resulted in several players never speaking to him again, including Mickey Mantle, who one day wrote memoirs that were just as candid about baseball as Ball Four.