Word: kuhn
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Though it will never show in the record books, the niftiest squeeze play of the 1970 baseball season was pulled off by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn. When he first announced that All-Star Game selection would be done by the fans instead of the players, the "dream game" suddenly became a nightmare. Customers, rightfully charging that several deserving prospects were left off the ballot, howled about "Bowie's boo-boo." Players complained about the "meaningless popularity contest." As it happened, a large write-in vote rectified most of the injustices of the ballot. And a poll of the players showed...
...omission of Carty is the most ludicrous inconsistency in what has come to be known as "Bowie's booboo." To keep people "involved" in the All-Star game, Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn decided last winter to again let the fans make the selections instead of the players. To prevent ballot stuffing, Kuhn arranged to have the voting policed and tabulated by computer. Trouble was, to allow enough time for programming the computer, managers and player representatives had to select the nominees last spring, which is about as reliable as trying to predict the Dow-Jones averages eight months...
Well, ahem, says Bouton, he was thinking of "social commentary, an honest book that tells what baseball is really like." Kuhn, apparently, is not big on social commentary, and last week he ordered Bouton not to write another word about baseball as long as he remained an active player. In light of Bouton's pitching performances this season -two wins, three losses, an ERA of 7.02-the warning may not stay in effect for very long. In any case, Ball Four (World Publishing Co.; $6.95), a diary of the author's ups and downs with the New York...
...Ball. To anyone who ever lived in a college dorm or an Army barracks, Bouton's tales are not all that scandalous. Bowie Kuhn and the players aside, fans will find Ball Four a fast, flip and often funny account of the author's struggle to stay in the big leagues as a knuckleballing pitcher after losing his high hard one (Bouton won 21 games for the Yankees of 1963). To be sure, he gets his digs in along the way. He tells of Mantle showing up for a game "hung over out of his mind" and pushing...
...Bouton is ready to suffer the consequences for saying that baseball stars are human. After his meeting with Kuhn last week, he reflected: "I figure I've cut my career short by at least three years. If you're a marginal player who's done what I've done, you've got a fine chance to be cut from the squad." Or cut down. "I expect to be punched out one of these days. It's just a matter of time, I suppose...