Amateur and College Career
Bouton was born in Newark, New Jersey, United States. While attending high school in Chicago Heights, Illinois, Bouton was nicknamed "Warm-Up Bouton" because he never got to play in a game, serving much of his time as a benchwarmer. Jerry Colangelo, future owner of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Phoenix Suns, was the ace of that Bloom High School staff. In summer leagues, Bouton did not throw particularly hard, but he got batters out by mixing conventional pitches with the knuckleball that he had experimented with since childhood. Bouton played baseball while he attended Western Michigan University before he played professionally.
Read more about this topic: Jim Bouton
Famous quotes containing the words amateur, college and/or career:
“The true gardener then brushes over the ground with slow and gentle hand, to liberate a space for breath round some favourite; but he is not thinking about destruction except incidentally. It is only the amateur like myself who becomes obsessed and rejoices with a sadistic pleasure in weeds that are big and bad enough to pull, and at last, almost forgetting the flowers altogether, turns into a Reformer.”
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