Funny, one of those endless Twitter memes today asked for something your parents took away from you and wouldn’t let you see/hear/read. I was 12 or 13ish, and we’d just rented “Slap Shot” at Video Box Office in Milford, and it was going to be my first time watching it. But I called my brother some vile name or another; don’t even remember what. And my Dad refused to let me watch “Slap Shot.”
Odds were decent I had picked up the vile name from “Ball Four,” which, I’m not sure if it influenced my writing; it probably did, and I’d almost bet money on that. But it definitely influenced my profanity. I’ll compound ’em like Joe Schultz any day.
So, thanks, Jim Bouton.
A former Major League pitcher, writer, broadcaster, entrepreneur, who knows what else: Bouton has died at 80, the Daily News reports. He took plenty of heat for that book almost 50 years ago, which is relatively tame today. He had a heck of a second act. And he’d been back in the Yankees fold recently, which is nice.
Knew he’d been ill in later years, but still let out a (bleepbleep) seeing the news. RIP.