This is the first Kiss and Tell novel on baseball, and it was the best of all of them. Bouton may have been the most hated man in baseball for a long time. Unlike a Pedro Martinez, a low life Red Sox headhunter, It was not for his play that he was despised.
Bouton was hated for the best real reason: He told the truth. None of the stories that he told were ever discounted that I have heard. He ripped the label of honor off of the old ball game and many will never forgive him.
The book is funny, and hip for its time.
He also exposed the dirtiest baseball secret of all, which wasn't sex, but salaries. It may come as a shock to present-day readers, accustomed to multi-millionaire baseball stars, to learn that players 30+ years ago earned barely subsistence wages and were totally at the mercy of club owners. I was flabbergasted to learn that Bouton, with a wife and three kids, earned LESS than my own extremely modest salary at that time as a (single) university Instructor!
But this book isn't a heavy-handed, moralistic indictment of Major League baseball. Instead, it's gloriously goofy and hilariously funny! As a writer, Bouton has a genuine, unique "voice," which I suspect owes very little to his editor. Someone could hand me a copy of any paragraph from _Ball Four_ and I'd recognize it instantly as Bouton. How many authors can you say that about?
To me, the funniest anecdote in a book full of marvelous stories is Bouton's report that the Seattle Pilots' manager fined players for appearing at the clubhouse post-game buffet--as Bouton delicately puts it--"with Charlie uncovered." In itself, this is a funny, somewhat crude anecdote; it's Bouton's additional comment that raises it to the level of high comedy art. He notes that if the Yankees had instituted the same rule they'd have made a fortune in fines, since Elston Howard and Yogi Berra both were "famous for dragging Charlie through the cold cuts." That line alone is worth the price of the book!
The humor and stories, at one time were considered bawdy, now it appears very innocent and tame. Not in a naive or rose-colored way, but the stories are of guys being guys, playing a game. It makes you smile and wistful. Wishing you could have been a part of it, or wishing you were still a part of it.
Reading it gives greater insight into why players hang on in any sport as long as they do, beyond simply the money to be made.