Jim Bouton Defends Joe Torre, Says There Is No MLB Clubhouse "Sanctity"

(Zell's Pinstripe Blog)

Did Joe Torre break the code of "what happens in the clubhouse should stay in the clubhouse?" Jim Bouton doesn’t think there is any clubhouse sanctity anyway. 

When you become a professional baseball player, you are open to criticism and you will be written about. Bouton believes that most of the things being said in the book is stuff fans already know.

He was also laughing at the idea that a player would actually feel violated by the book. Can anybody tell me what we learned from the book? If you think about it..most of this stuff we already knew.

Wells and Torre clashed, Brown and Pavano were bums, Steinbrenner was crazy and Cashman and Torre had different views on some topics.

Joe Torre seemed like the same classy guy on Larry King that he was when he was the Yankees manager. The book doesn’t change my opinion of him. Feel free to bash away though…

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And to anyone offended that unflattering accounts of his behavior landed in a book, Bouton offered simple advice: “Books are going to be written. Therefore, don’t act like a jerk.”

“It is almost 40 years later,” he said. “Why in the world anyone is still talking about the sanctity of the clubhouse is beyond me. Baseball and the Yankees should feel lucky that this book is generating so much attention in January… there is no job hitting a ball with a stick unless a lot of people are convinced it’s important.”

“These guys have voluntarily gone into a business where people know that everything that they do or say is subject to being written about. They act as if they’re surprised when somebody tells what they do. Roger Maris always wanted to be a private person. Well, get into the shoe business if that’s what you want.”

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Citi Field, the David Wells/Kevin Brown debate and some old quotes

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