Shawn Collins - ballfourbook.com

I stumbled across Ball Four about five years ago, killing time in a bookstore, and I didn't put it down until I was finished. The book felt very real to me, and I wanted to know more about it, but I couldn't find anything on the internet.

Finally, I tracked Jim down for an interview (I was an online sports editor for the Newark Star-Ledger) and after a nice chat about Ball Four, I wondered what some of the players thought about it. So I wrote to a few... Steve Barber, Ralph Houk, Johnny Sain, etc. And they wrote back.

I added my interview with Jim and the letters to one of my Web sites and with no promotion, people started finding it . Soon, more and more people were contacting me with their thoughts
and memories about Ball Four. So I began accumulating random tidbits, old cards, and articles associated with the book.

Today the site I was looking for years ago is here - it's my own www.ballfourbook.com - for fans of Ball Four.

Mike Fuller -

My fascination with the Seattle Pilots started with a package of hot dogs. Cudahay gave away coupons for a free ticket in their packages of Bar-S franks. But Dad's job as a union representative had him constantly on the road and we never made it to a game in 1969, agreeing that we would go "next year." Of course, there was no next year for the Pilots.

In my late thirties, I began to feel that part of my childhood had been stolen: I never went to a baseball game with my Dad. I didn't blame him, he worked his tail off to help us and all those union workers who used to call him at home...but I did want to find out why the Pilots left so abruptly. That led to research for a book and ultimately to creating this web-site.

My goal is to bring the Pilots back to life. It's been a cathartic experience for me and many of thousands of people who have written to share their memories of the Pilots and, sometimes,
their pain for having missed them.

So, I hope after checking out the rest of Jim's site, you'll come visit me in a little stadium where your bleacher seat is built while you wait, the toilets don't flush after the seventh inning, and the uniforms, as Jim once said, made the players, "...look like goddam clowns."