Jim Bouton

Jim was a bench warmer in high school with the nickname “Warm-Up Bouton.” His guidance counselor recommended a career as a forest ranger. People are still having trouble predicting what Jim Bouton might do next. This Yankee twenty-game winner, author of Ball Four, TV sportscaster, actor, inventor, and businessman, is also a major league speaker. His presentation is a highly entertaining combination of anecdotes, insights and inspiration, tailored to his audience. And he’s very very funny.

Bouton believes in focusing on the process to achieve goals. He encourages his audience to think like athletes, get into the fun of the enterprise, the challenge of long odds, the satisfaction in details, the thrill of extraordinary effort, the joy of work. His love of a challenge led to his unprecedented comeback to the major leagues at the age of 39, after an eight-year retirement. “The irony,” says Bouton, “is that by focusing on the process you reach the goals more often.”

MB: When did you start playing baseball?

JB: When I was about six years old.

MB: Can you remember the first time you were nervous while playing?

JB: I never called it nervousness. I always thought of it as excitement and fun.

MB: How did you feel?

JB: Energized. And focused.

MB: Can you tell me what your thoughts were?

JB: Well, it really depends on what stage of my life you’re talking about. I think at some point along the way I realized that the butterflies in my stomach were an asset, not a liability. The way to be successful in performance situations is to see nervousness as a source of electricity that you can plug into. There have been some situations where I didn’t feel nervous, I didn’t feel butterflies, and I had to manufacture butterflies to get a better performance. While pitching with the Yankees, for example, games became routine after a while. So I would create an imaginary dire circumstance. I’d put the welfare of mankind at stake. Tonight’s win will end starvation in India.