PLAY BALL!
‘Bulldog’ Bouton joins Yanks’ Old-Timers Game
EX-YANKEES pitcher Jim Bouton will take the mound one more time June 17 for what might be the most meaningful game of his storied career.
Bouton was named Thursday to the 2018 Old-Timers Game, where he will be joined by legendary Bronx Bombers Homer Bush, Bucky Dent, Whitey Ford and Ron Guidry, as well as newcomers Jason Giambi and Aaron Boone.
In the crowd will be 54 guests of the 79-year-old knuckleballer, including his six grandchildren — four girls and two boys, ranging in age from 7 to 18 — who have never seen “Bulldog” in uniform.
Bouton and his wife, Paula Kurman, spoke to the Daily News from their home in the Berkshires. Because of his bout with cerebral amyloid angiopathy, a brain disease associated with dementia, Bouton frequently has his wife of 36 years expound on certain points for him. “This will be the first and possibly the last time that all of our grandchildren will see their grandfather in uniform and on the field,” says Kurman. “The last time he was there, the oldest grandchild wasn’t even here, and now she’s on her way to college.”
According to Kurman, Bouton’s legend didn’t extend into his household.
“I vividly remember walking in New York when the oldest girl, Georgia, noticed that people were stopping Jim and she said ‘Does Boppa know these people?’ and I said ‘No,’ and she asked “Then how come they know him?”
That’s when Kurman started explaining to the grandkids that “Boppa” was kind of a big deal.
“They have no connection to his baseball years or his baseball career,” she says. Also joining Bouton in Yankee Stadium will be his two brothers, who are both dealing with illnesses as well.
The game marks the 20th anniversary of Bouton’s return to the Bronx.
His comeback started in 1995 when Mickey Mantle lost his 36-year-old son, Billy, to a heartattack and Bouton wrote The Mick a heartfelt condolence letter remembering Billy running around the clubhouse as a kid.
Mantle replied with a sincere voice mail in which he told Bouton that longstanding rumors of him being responsible for his former teammate’s 25-year exile were untrue and that he had no issues with Bouton’s book “Ball Four,” in which he’s painted as a hard drinker.
Mantle’s blessing helped pave the way for Bouton’s road to forgiveness in Pinstripe Nation.
When Bouton lost his 31-yearold daughter Laurie in a car accident two years later, his son Michael penned an open letter to Yankees’ owner George Steinbrenner in The New York Times asking that the team formally bury the hatchet.
Bouton, who won two games for the Yankees in the 1964 World Series, was soon after invited to the 1998 Old-Timers Game.
Bouton told the Daily News on Friday that he never thought he’d see the day the Yankees welcomed him back. “No, I didn’t think so,” he said. Today Bouton stays in shape by throwing a ball around his yard, where he’s finally found a catcher who can handle his knuckleball — a border collie comfort dog named Coco, who visits every Wednesday.
Bouton isn’t expected to play in the Old-Timers Game — but jokes that he might.
“I think depending on who’s out there,” he laughed. “If I’m tempted.”
He’s also helping with a biography about his life that is expected to his stores in 2020 to coincide with the 50th anniversary of “Ball Four.”