Anybody tells you that I missed practice —
If a coach says I miss practice
And y’all hear it.
Then that’s that.
I might have missed one practice this year.
But if somebody says,
He doesn’t come to practice
It can be one practice
Out of all the practices this year
That’s enough.
If I can’t practice I can’t practice.
If I’m hurt I’m hurt.
Simple as that.
It ain’t about that.
It isn’t.
It’s not about that.
At all.
But it’s easy to talk about.
It’s easy to sum it up
When you talk about practice.
We’re sitting here, I’m supposed to be the franchise player,
And we’re talkin’ about practice.
We’re talkin’ about practice.
Not a game
Not a game.
Not the game that I go out there and die for.
And play every game like it’s my last.
Not the game.
We’re talkin’ about practice, man.
How silly is that?
I know I’m supposed to be there.
I know I’m supposed to lead by example.
I know that.
And I’m not shoving it aside like it don’t mean anything.
I know it’s important.
I do.
I honestly do.
But we’re talkin’ about practice, man.
What are we talkin’ about?
Practice?
We ain’t talkin’ about the game.
When you come in the arena,
And you see me play —
You see me play, don’t you?
You see me give everything I got, right?
But we’re talkin’ about practice right now.
It’s funny to me, too.
It’s strange to me, too.
We’re not even talking about the game.
The actual game – when it matters.
We’re talking about practice.
Mitch Nathanson's biography of Jim Bouton is out now. You might as well buy it; you've got nothing better to do
