num_pages: 512
description: In his first diary since Ball Four  Jim Bouton recounts his amazing adventure trying to save an historic ballpark in Pittsfield Massachusetts. Host to organized baseball since 1892 Wahconah Park was soon to be abandoned by the owner of the Pittsfield Mets who would move his team to a new stadium in another town---an all too familiar story.Enter Bouton and his partners with the best deal ever offered to a community---a locally owned professional baseball team and a privately restored city owned ballpark at no cost to the taxpayers. It was a dream come true for the vast majority of the people of Pittsfield.But Boutons plan was opposed by an elite group of power brokers who wanted to build a new $18.5 million baseball stadium---a stadium that the people had voted against three different times!In what one reviewer called that same humane sarcastic voice Bouton unmasks a mayor who brags that the fix is in a newspaper that lies to its readers and a city government that operates out of a bar.And thats just Part l.Part ll is the even more amazing story of what happened after this book as self published---a story in itself---in hardcover. Invited back to Pittsfield by newly elected city officials Bouton and his partners raise $1.2 million help uncover a document that dates Pittsfields baseball origins to 1791 and stage a vintage baseball game that is broadcast live on national television.Who could have guessed what would happen next? And that this time it would involve the Massachusetts Attorney General.
language: English
title: Foul Ball: My Life and Hard Times Trying to Save an Old Ballpark, Plus Part Two
publisher: UNKNO