Jim Bunning (Baseball In America) - Hardcover

Dolson, Frank

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1566396360 ISBN 13: 9781566396363

Publisher: Temple University Press, 1998

Synopsis

Jim Bunning began as a $150-a-month rookie in Richmond, Indiana, spent seven years in the minor leagues, and still made it to the Hall of Fame. He pitched a no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox in Fenway Park, even though the first-base coach was relaying his catcher's signs to the batters, and retired Ted Williams for the final out. Bunning also pitched a historic perfect game against the New York Mets, and performed spectacularly in a succession of All-Star Game appearances. He was the second pitcher in major league history to win 100 games in each league. The first was Cy Young. He was the second pitcher to strike out 1000 in each league; again, only Cy Young beat him to it. When Bunting retired at the end of the 1971 season, only one man - Walter Johnson - had more career strikeouts. But Bunning did more than play baseball. He was a driving force in the early years of the Players Association, one of the men responsible for choosing Marvin Miller as head of the union. Bunning also was a manager in the minor leagues and in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and was even a player's agent for a time. His baseball career behind him, he began a second career in politics. With a huge assist from his wife Mary, the mother of their nine children, he waged an unsuccessful gubernatorial race in Kentucky, then became a six-term Congressman. Bunning is currently running for the U.S. Senate seat in Kentucky.

About this title

Review:

Before he was Kentucky's Republican senator, Jim Bunning was a helluva hard-throwing righthander pitcher, primarily for the Tigers and the Phillies. He earned his rightful niche in Cooperstown by tossing no-hitters in each league (including the famed Father's Day perfecto against the Mets in 1964), striking out more than 1,000 hitters in each league, and, most significant of all, notching more than 100 victories in each league; only Cy Young had scored that trifecta before him.

As conspicuous as Bunning's contributions were on the field, his real lasting legacy to the game has been off it. An early and respected authority in the Major League Players Association, Bunning helped bring Marvin Miller in to cohere the union, crack the back of the slavish reserve clause, and open the gate on free agency; his reward was to see the door slammed on his own dream of managing. Bunning then turned to politics; in six terms in the House, he has avidly opposed, to the dread and ire of baseball's establishment, the game's antiquated exemption from antitrust laws.

Dolson, who covered much of Bunning's career as a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer, has written a solid and fair testament to a fascinatingly driven man. "There is no mystery to Jim Bunning," he observes, though there is plenty of complexity. "He is what you see--unfailingly direct, sometimes to the point of being abrasive.... He is a man who makes loyal friends and bitter enemies," great qualities for both pitchers and politicians. --Jeff Silverman

From the Publisher:

A biography of the Hall of Famer who pitched no-hitters against the sluggers of both leagues, took on sportswriters and baseball leaders, and started a second career as a politician

About this edition

• Publisher: Temple University Press
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1566396360
• ISBN 13: 9781566396363
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 298