Chapter 9:The Way It Was, the Way it is

In one of the last chapters of the book, the author uses his book as a platform to interview a man who wrote a book that put the MLB up in arms. Jim Bouton, who wrote the book Foul balls, highlighted many things that weren’t suppose to be leaked to the masses. For this publication, Jim was banned from baseball in a Pete Rose fashion. Jim Bouton is not a scrub from the past “ a former twenty game winner and All-star from the New York Yankees.” Why is Major League Baseball so fast to ban a player from the game they gave to for so long. I know this is not what the chapter is about in a way but I feel like this is my time to speak on this topic. We have Pete Rose and now I’m learning about Jim Bouton, two of the best baseball players that baseball has ever seen. So in return we ban them for things like writing books and gambling on sports. I have seen new players who have injected things to enhance their performance. We live in a time where an athlete can be questioned about a murder or raping a young girl in Colorado and still be able to play. Even worse we leave players on rosters while they are in jail for underground animal fighting. Why do we let athletes who have been labeled as thugs to continue their play in professional sports? I know that what I’m talking about is not really what this chapter is talking about. When the Jim Bouton incident was brought up it sparked something in me. I just don’t understand about our modern day sports code of conducts. I am a fan of all the athletes involved in these incidents that I have refereed to above but none the less I think these athletes should have been punished a little more strictly. I see our athletes of today as people who think they can do anything without punishment. This creates a society that is unjust and is why a lot of people look at athletes as cocky.