Beyond The Baseball TV Grave: Ball Four, A Sitcom Based On The Controversial Book Airing In The Family Viewing Hour

The Ratings Junkie

Beyond The Baseball TV Grave is a sub-series of Beyond The TV Grave, taking a look at short-lived baseball-themed TV shows. This eighth edition focuses on CBS’s Ball Four, a sitcom that was the first ever scripted baseball series to air on broadcast television. It was pulled from the fall 1976 schedule after airing five episodes.

Background

Despite coming in first place in the 1975-76 TV season, Wednesdays were pretty much a dead zone for CBS. Variety show Tony Orlando and Dawn started off the night, finishing in 23rd out of 35 programs on the network. Detective drama Cannon followed, and came in a slightly more respectable 18th place. Ill-fated new dramas Kate McShane and The Blue Knight occupied the 10 pm time slot, the former of which ranked 34th and the latter 25th. Needless to say, the network needed to make a change going into the 1976-77 TV season if they wanted to put up a respectable showing.

Indeed, Wednesday nights were overhauled in fall 1976. The Blue Knight would remain at 10 pm, but it would follow a newly-created two-hour comedy block. The highest-rated show of the past five seasons, the Norman Lear-created All In The Family, would serve as the anchor at 9 pm. Good Times, a spinoff of a spinoff of All In The Family, would start off the night at 8. Airing at the bottom of the hours would be new sitcom Alice at 9:30, and fellow new sitcom Ball Four at 8:30.

Even though Ball Four was sandwiched in between a hit sitcom in Good Times and an even bigger hit in All In The Family, the latter of which it also reportedly took inspiration from, the baseball sitcom was arguably in an undesirable time slot. Ball Four was based on a book of the same name; a book that could most certainly not be adapted into a TV series that aired in the government-mandated Family Viewing Hour.

Ball Four is most known as a 1970 book by MLB pitcher Jim Bouton. The book was written during Bouton’s 1969 season, where he played in both Triple A and the MLB. It also delves into some of his past experiences, having been in the MLB since 1962. While not intended as a tell-all book, it was widely taken by the MLB and many of Bouton’s fellow MLB players as such. It was provocative at the time, particularly for its look into topics such as drug use and sex among MLB players. The MLB league commissioner attempted to make Bouton clarify the book is fiction, a request Bouton did not comply with. The declining pitcher was essentially blacklisted from the MLB as a result of the book and its success. He was sent down to the minors, and retired two months after publication.

Synopsis

Ball Four, the TV series, was an attempt to adapt the commercially successful book into a sitcom. The show was created by Jim Bouton himself alongside Newsday’s TV critic Marvin Kitman and the New York Post’s sportswriter Vic Ziegel. None of the three had any previous TV or film credits to their names, nor did they really expect their pilot to actually be ordered to series. In an interview the summer prior to the show’s premiere, Bouton explained he had planned to play Double A baseball, and did not even envision himself to be the star of the series. His co-stars included NFL player-turned-actor Ben Davidson.

CBS’s 1976 sitcom depicted the moments before and after baseball games. It starred Bouton as Jim Barton, a version of himself who was going through the backlash from a series of articles he published in Sports Illustrated akin to his Ball Four book. The series attempted to delve into drug use and sex, included one of the first gay characters on television, and had the closest to swearing you could get on CBS in the Family Viewing Hour. It was not a show made specifically for baseball fans, something Bouton tried to clarify in the aforementioned interview.

Ratings & Cancellation

Ball Four premiered Wednesday, September 22, 1976 directly after the first part of a two-part premiere of Good Times, and before a special one-hour premiere of All In The Family. Unfortunately, ratings for Ball Four are unavailable. Even in the event Ball Four premiere decently, it certainly did not stay that way. While seven episodes were produced, Ball Four was pulled from the schedule after its fifth episode aired on October 27. It ranked 29th out of 38 programs on CBS in the 1976-77 TV season, making it unlikely the show ever looked respectable. Ball Four is also credited as a reason why lead-out All In The Family had its second-worst-season on record; it was the first time in six years the series was not the highest-rated program on television. This all comes despite Ball Four managing to never have to air against the MLB playoffs.

CBS would overhaul their Wednesday night lineup with the cancelation of Ball Four and drama The Blue Knight. The Jeffersons took over the 8:30 pm time slot, while All In The Family would move back to Saturdays with Alice. The CBS Wednesday Night Movie occupied Wednesday nights from 9 pm through 11 pm. The two unaired episodes would never see the light of day.

Even if there was audience interest in a sitcom adaptation of Jim Bouton’s book, it was never going to be executed as intended airing at 8:30 pm. The series constantly fell victim to network notes, with several CBS executives reportedly apprehensive about airing the show in the first place. There were also fundamental issues with marketing the series, like with Bouton’s aforementioned interview trying to broaden the premise of the series to entice non-baseball fans to tune in. Created by and starring an MLB pitcher and based on his bestselling book, there’s little reason for someone to believe his would appeal to non-baseball fans.

In the hypothetical scenario where there was indeed an audience demanding Ball Four the sitcom, there was a pretty obvious time slot for the show — and it wasn’t Wednesdays at 8:30 in the fall. It was Saturdays at 9:30 pm midseason, where it would air after All In The Family at a later hour. It would be sandwiched between the hit sitcom and new drama The Andros Targets which, while a flop with even lower ratings than Ball Four, at least looked semi-compatible as a show about uncovering corruption in the newspaper industry. Of course, there didn’t seem to be much of an appetite for Ball Four to begin with, so this likely would not have made much of a difference.

Aftermath

The Family Viewing Hour was ruled unconstitutional on November 4, 1976, just one day after Ball Four would have presumably aired its sixth episode had it not been pulled from the schedule. While it remained mostly intact in practice, the relaxation of the soon-unwritten rule and the eventual advent of cable and streaming begs the question of if Ball Four was simply ahead of its time. Maybe Ball Four could have had better success had cable been widespread in 1976. Judging by all the subsequent failed attempts at airing a baseball scripted program, it probably wouldn’t have made much of a difference.

Ball Four is almost entirely lost media, something Bouton appreciated. The opening credits do survive, but full episodes or even clips of the series do not. Bouton would briefly return to the MLB in 1978 before retiring permanently. Coincidentally, this was the same year CBS ordered their next baseball sitcom to series, the family-friendly adaptation of The Bad News Bears.

Whereas the sitcom is lost media, Bouton was remembered for and interviewed about the book it was based on for the remainder of his life. It is still considered a must-read for baseball fans, having been recognized by the New York Public Library and Time Magazine and republished multiple times. Bouton would also go on to branch out into fiction writing, co-authoring the baseball book Strike Zone.