Ball Four is a 1976 American situation comedy that aired on CBS in 1976. The series is inspired by the 1970 book of the same name by Jim Bouton. Bouton co-created the show with humorist and television critic Marvin Kitman and sportswriter Vic Ziegel. Bouton also starred in the series. Ball Four followed the Washington Americans, a fictitious minor league baseball team, dealing with the fallout from a series of Sports Illustrated articles written by Americans player Jim Barton. Like the book, the series covered controversial subjects including womanizing players, drug use, homosexuality in sports and religion. The series included a gay rookie ballplayer, one of the earliest regular gay characters on television. The trio began developing the series in 1975, looking to other series like M*A*S*H and All in the Family as models. CBS expressed interest and the creative team developed a script. CBS shot the pilot episode and ultimately bought the series. Ball Four aired at 8:30 PM Eastern time, which was during the Family Viewing Hour, an FCC-mandated hour of early evening "family-friendly" broadcasting. Consequently the writers had some trouble with the network's Standards and Practices in their attempt to portray realistic locker room scenes, especially the language used by the players. Pseudo-profanity such as "bullpimp" was disallowed, while "horse-crock" and "bullhorse" were approved.
Release Date: September 22, 1976
Last Aired: October 27, 1976
Networks:
April 01, 2008
February 14, 2003
October 22, 2009
August 23, 2015
October 29, 2018
August 27, 2018
September 06, 1975
September 18, 1978
January 16, 1981
September 29, 1953
August 15, 1973
October 04, 1954
March 21, 1980
August 25, 1993
August 17, 1998
September 14, 1965
September 08, 1975
November 03, 1997
May 07, 1977
September 19, 1996
