Whether it was his frank talk about player salaries and mistreatment by management, his passionate advocacy of progressive politics, or his efforts to convince the United States to boycott the 1968 Olympics, Jim Bouton confronted the conservative sports world and compelled it to catch up with a rapidly changing American society. He defied tremendous odds to make the majors, won two games for the Yankees in the 1964 World Series, and staged an improbable comeback with the Braves as a 39-year-old. But it was his fateful 1969 season with the Seattle Pilots and his resulting insider’s account, BALL FOUR, that did nothing less than reintroduce America to its national pastime in a lasting, profound way. In BOUTON: The Life of a Baseball Original, Mitchell Nathanson gives readers a look at Bouton’s remarkable life.