30-Year-Old Man Hits Athletic Peak

30-Year-Old Man Hits Athletic Peak

I recently started the seminal baseball book Ball Four, Jim Bouton's diary of the 1969 season. As the book opens, Bouton is staring down the last days of his career. He was a young star for a couple of seasons with the Yankees, but his failure to live up to that early promise got him banished to the godforsaken expansion Seattle Pilots. From the very first pages, Bouton writes like a grizzled old man who's seen it all, rueful about past contract…