The words 'ball four' are anathema to the ears of pitchers, but they turned out to be music to those of James Alan Bouton, a product of New York and Chicago born on March 8, 1939, in Newark, N.J. He and a former teammate developed Big League Chew, a bubble gum alternative to chewing tobacco. He was 80 and is survived by, among others, his wife, Paula Kurman, and his sons, Michael and David. He finished his 10-year career with a 62-63 record and 3.57 ERA.īouton was a television sportscaster in New York City with WABC and WCBS, wrote other books and starred in a 1976 CBS sitcom based on “Ball Four” that lasted only five episodes. He worked on “Ball Four” in 1969, a season spent with the expansion Seattle Pilots and Houston Astros, his fastball replaced by a knuckleball as he tried to prolong his career.īouton also pitched for Houston in 1970, and made a comeback with the Atlanta Braves in 1978, going 1-3 at age 39. 13, 2017 Paula Kurman first met her husband, Jim Bouton, in 1977, at a hospital fund-raiser at a Bloomingdale’s in Hackensack, N.J. She thought he was handsome, but she didn’t understand why people. Louis Cardinals.īouton injured his right arm in 1965, going 4-15 that season, and saw limited action the next three seasons with New York. Paula Kurman first met her husband, Jim Bouton, in 1977, at a hospital fund-raiser at a Bloomingdale’s in Hackensack, N.J. Bouton had a stroke in 2012 and in 2017 revealed he had a brain disease called cerebral amyloid angiopathy. The Yankees lost the World Series both years, with Bouton losing his lone start in 1963 in New York’s loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers, and winning twice the following year in the Yankees’ loss to the St. He died after a long struggle with vascular dementia, said his wife, Paula Kurman. Throwing so hard that his cap flew off his head, Bouton was 21-8 with six shutouts in 1963 - his second season in the majors - and went 18-13 with four more shutouts in 1964.

Paula kurman