Big Hair and Plastic Grass

The Cubs Are Coming Out Of Hibernation...

Regular readers of this blog know that I require only the flimsiest of excuses to post a pic of the 'fro-tastic Jose Cardenal, but this time I've got a good reason for it. A big tip of the Monsanto Toupee to my pals Dave Mundo and David Jordan for hipping me to this fine collection of Cubs spring training clips from the 1970s, which was unearthed a day or two back by the Chicago Tribune.

Ernie Banks sings, Leo Durocher ponders Fergie Jenkins ability to win 30 games in a single season, Glenn Beckert sports their new road double-knits, and a the aforementioned Jose juggles baseballs to the tune of "The Entertainer," aka "Theme from The Sting"... (There's more good stuff in there, too — but if that description alone doesn't get yer pulse pumpin', you're on the wrong damn page.)

Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to embed the clip, so you'll have to click here to see the 1970s Cubs coming out of hibernation in the spring...

Happy (Belated) Fullpack Day!!!

First of all, my funky friends, I realize that I must apologize for searing your retinas with this image of a BVDs-clad, appendix-scarred Earl Weaver — but this is far and away one of my favorite baseball photos of the 1970s. Because other than Oscar Gamble's afro, nothing says "70s Baseball" quite like a couple of cans of Schlitz, a lit cigarette, a crappy Coke clock, a TV (probably black and white) with a single antenna, a shirtless Weaver, and a sweaty, shaggy-haired Don Stanhouse in a "Stan The Man Unusual" t-shirt. I can pretty much guarantee that you will never see anything approaching this tableau ever re-enacted in a major league clubhouse...

The pic was taken in 1979, at the peak of Don Stanhouse's career. Stanhouse had kicked around for several years with the Texas Rangers and Montreal Expos as a part-time starter and occasional long reliever, before coming to Baltimore in the same December '77 trade that sent Joe Kerrigan and Gary Roenicke to the Orioles in exchange for Rudy May, Randy Miller and Bryn Smith. Given a shot as the O's closer, Stanhouse went on to post the two best seasons of his career (6-9 with a 2.89 ERA and 24 saves in '78, followed by a 7-3 record with a 2.85 ERA, 21 saves and an All Star team selection in '79) ... and give Earl Weaver several minor heart attacks in the process. Weaver, in turn, inadvertently gave Stanhouse the nickname "Fullpack," after grousing to reporters that he consumed a full pack of smokes every time Stanhouse — who typically walked more batters than he struck out — took the mound.

Stanhouse, dubbed "Stan The Man Unusual" by the late Mike Flanagan, was one of the more colorful characters of 70s baseball (and believe me, that's saying something). The cat's crown of curls would have made Harpo Marx honk his horn in jealousy, while you could have probably squeezed at least half a pint of beer (and god knows what other substances) from that moustache on any given occasion. Fullpack loved Cadillacs and ladies ("Tell me one person in the world who doesn't like women," he once quipped to the Baltimore Sun. "My trouble is that I like too many of them."), he kept a stuffed gorilla in his locker, and his pre-game ritual included scaring the shit out of anyone in earshot with primal screams. He also drove opposing hitters nuts with his agonizingly slow windup and delivery — a movement so glacial, his teammates would often tease him about falling asleep between pitches.

Unfortunately, a back injury drove Fullpack out of the game just a few years after he helped take Weaver and the '79 Orioles all the way to the World Series, where they were beaten in seven games by the "We Are Family" Pirates. He's bounced back nicely in the business world since then (as detailed in this excellent Baseball Savvy article), and he's also popped up on the Big Hair & Plastic Grass Facebook page, where he occasionally leaves comments under photos of his former colleagues (such as "Roscoe P. Foreskin" under a pic of Ross Grimsley).

I've also had the pleasure of hearing from him via email on occasion, including the time he jokingly (I think) threatened to sue me for accidentally misspelling his name as "Standhouse" in the first edition of Big Hair & Plastic Grass. And now, alas, I appear to have inadvertantly bummed him out again.

"Can't believe you dicks forgot my birthday!" read the email I received from him this morning. And while we did give him birthday props two days ago on Facebook, I must admit that I was too swamped with deadlines that day to give him a proper shout-out on this page. So, Happy Belated Birthday, Fullpack — sorry we missed it. Hope it was a most unusual one, in the best possible way!

Sip At Risk From Richie Zisk

Funky birthday greetings to Richie Zisk, the slugging outfielder with the Village People-worthy moustache who had some great years for the Pirates in the mid-70s. In 1977, he knocked 30 homers and 101 RBI for Bill Veeck's "South Side Hitmen" White Sox squad, inspiring such Comiskey Park banner slogans as "Pitch At Risk To Richie Zisk," and earning him a place on a can of RC Cola...

Forever Blowing Bubbles

Kurt Bevacqua, a utility man who spent parts of fifteen seasons with the Indians, Royals, Pirates, Brewers, Rangers and Padres franchises (some of them twice), is best-known these days as the subject of several colorful Tommy Lasorda tirades; some folks down San Diego way may also remember him fondly for hitting a game-winning homer off Dan Petry in Game 2 of the 1984 World Series, which to date remains the one and only October Classic win in Padres history.

But to me, a child of the 70s who found this wonderfully bizarre "action shot" card in his first-ever Topps wax pack, Kurt Bevacqua (whose birthday it is today) will always be the Bazooka Bubble Blowing Champion of the known universe. The competition, staged by Major League Baseball and Topps, Inc. (who also produced the mighty pink chewable rectangles known as Bazooka Bubblegum), featured players from all 24 teams; held late in the 1975 season, it was filmed to be shown during that year's World Series pre-game broadcasts, with the ubiquitous Joe Garagiola hosting. Though contestants included such stars as Johnny Bench, George Brett, Bert Blyleven, Bill Madlock and Gary Carter, it was Bevacqua who, er, blew his way to the top, besting runner-up Johnny Oates with with a prodigious bubble that was measured at 18 inches by umpire Dick Stello.

Sadly, baseball's Bazooka Bubble Blowing Championship was a one-time-only affair. As such, Bevacqua, who spent most of '76 with the Brewers' Triple-A team in Spokane, never had to defend his crown — which, perhaps, means that he really will remain champion forever. But thanks to the magic of the Internet, we can still watch his victory again and again. Parts 1 and 2 of the '75 Bubblegum Championship broadcast are embedded below; in retrospect, their goofy, color-saturated charm perfectly sums up much of what I love about 1970s baseball.

Part One: Part Two:

Big "Big Hair" News!!!

Oscar Gamble and his mighty 'fro are back once again, this time as the bearers of some righteous news:

The long-awaited paperback edition of Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s now has an official release date: June 5, 2012!

While the paperback won't contain any new content, per se, the minor errors that slipped through during the original editing process (and which got a certain New York Times reviewer profoundly bent out of shape) have now happily been corrected. So if you've been waiting for it to come out in affordable paperback form before plunking down yer hard-earned cash for a copy, now's your chance! You can actually pre-order it from Amazon and from Barnes & Noble, so it will be waiting at your doorstep on the day of release.

For those of you into the eBook scene, the digital version of Big Hair & Plastic Grass is already available for Kindle and for Nook; you can also find it in the iBooks store. The first printing of the hardcover edition is also pretty close to sold-out at this point; so if first editions are your thing, snap it up while you still can!

Summer's still a long way off, but I'll definitely be doing some reading/signing events (hopefully including some which would make Bill Veeck proud) to support the paperback, so check here — or the always-groovin' BH&PG Facebook page — for further updates...

I'd also like to take this opportunity to once again thank everyone who has bought, read, reviewed or otherwise supported this labor of love. I am continually humbled to learn of the enjoyment it has brought to people, and am continually stoked to see how many people out there who still hold a 'fro-tastic place in their heart for the glory (and ridiculousness) of '70s baseball.

See you all on the dancefloor,

Dan

 

 

STREEEEETTTTCH!!!

Give it up, y'all, for Willie "Stretch" McCovey, who turns 74 today. This cat with the big smile and even bigger bat won NL Rookie of the Year honors in 1959 after playing less than a third of a season (he hit .354 with 13 homers and 38 RBI in 219 plate appearances), and then went on to play 21 more seasons, finishing his career in 1980 with 521 career home runs, a 1969 NL MVP Award, and a first-ballot ticket to the Hall of Fame. He also homered in four different decades — Ted Williams, Rickey Henderson and Omar Vizquel are the only other players who can claim to have matched that feat.

One of the most feared sluggers of the 1960s — he inspired the "McCovey Shift," wherein teams positioned three infielders between first and second (and sometimes four players in the outfield), and no less a bad-ass than Bob Gibson expressed his distaste for facing him — McCovey posted his last great season in 1970, hitting .289 with 39 doubles, 39 homers, 126 RBI and a league-leading 137 walks for the third-place San Francisco Giants. But though his numbers would slip drastically at times during the 70s, the 6'4" first baseman still cut a tremendously imposing figure. Check out his 1973 Topps card, where he towers over future fellow Hall of Famer Johnny Bench:

"Damn," he seems to be saying. "Did my foul liner just decapitate that beer vendor?" "He'll be feeling THAT tomorrow," nods Bench, sagely...

'73 would be Stretch's last year with the Giants, at least for awhile. Bouncing back after a knee injury-riddled 1972 that saw him hit only .213 with 14 homers while playing in only 81 games, he hit .266 with 29 homers and 75 RBI... and led the league for the fourth time in intentional walks, with 25. (In 1969, his lone MVP year, he led the league with a whopping 45 IBBs.) The Giants, figuring that McCovey's trade value would never be higher, shipped him off to San Diego with teammate Bernie Williams in exchange for lefty hurler Mike Caldwell. But since the Padres were strongly rumored to be moving to Washington DC for '74, Topps gave him one of the more confusing card treatments imaginable — a poorly airbrushed "SD" cap, and a "Washington Nat'l Lea." team designation. Later printings of the card (issued after Ray Kroc bought the team and kept them in San Diego) would correct the team, but not the half-assed artwork...

1976 was probably the nadir of McCovey's career. After hitting only .203 with 7 homers in 71 games with the Padres, he was sold to Oakland on August 30. A's, then eight games in back of the Royals, figured that McCovey's bat would come in handy in the pennant race; but while Chuck Tanner's squad managed to put a scare into Kansas City, finishing just 2.5 games out, the aging slugger didn't have much to do with it. Though a man of his size, age and skills would have seemed tailor-made for the DH role, in reality he wound up knocking only five singles in seven games. The connected moustache-and-sideburns look he sported during his brief Oakland tenure was pretty bad-ass, however.

And then it was back across the Bay to San Francisco as a relatively low-priced free agent. According to varying reports, the Giants paid him somewhere between half and two-thirds of the $110K a year he was making in his SF glory days. They definitely got their money's worth in '77, when he hit .280 with 28 home runs and 86 RBI while playing 136 games at first base, earning him both the NL Comeback Player of the Year award, and 20th place in the NL MVP voting. Not bad at all for a 39 year-old.

It was, of course, a downhill slide from there, though Stretch did make headlines on June 30, 1978, when he hit home run #500 off of Jamie Easterly of the Atlanta Braves. At that point in time, only 11 other players had reached that milestone. (Reggie Jackson would be the next to do it, in 1984.)

What else can you say about the man — other than that he was so bad-ass, they named a cove after him? Happy Birthday, Willie!

Happy Scuz Day!

Today marks the 61st birthday of Ross "Scuz" Grimsley, owner of perhaps the skankiest mop of greasy whiteboy curls in the history of major league baseball. Among his many, uh, personal quirks, Grimsley preferred not to shower during winning streaks. So if you don't feel like having a wash today, well, just chalk it up as a salute to Scuz.

The Funkiest 'Fro of Them All

I still remember opening my first Topps wax pack like it was yesterday — even though it was, in fact, a good 35 1/2 years ago. It was my friend Tim's 10th birthday, and he had a sleepover party to celebrate; his parents (permissive 70s hippie types who thought nothing of letting their son and his Fourth Grader friends read Penthouse) took us all to see The Bad News Bears, and gave us unopened packs of baseball cards as party favors. That evening, in retrospect, completely changed my life.

Up 'til that very night, I hadn't actually cared that much about baseball. I was certainly aware of it — watching the '69 World Series on TV with my Dad (a Mets fan), and the mini-Mets uniform my grandparents sent me in celebration of their victory, are among my most vivid early memories — and I'd even gotten caught up a bit in the excitement of Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth's home run record in 1974; but until that fateful night, I couldn't have told you the difference between a ball and a strike. At the time, I was far more interested in building model tanks, playing with my G.I. Joe dolls ("now with Kung-Fu grip!"), and reading books on military history.

Maybe it was just that I'd never seen a movie before where the kids onscreen swore as often and as colorfully as my friends and I did, but something clicked while watching The Bad News Bears. All of a sudden, I realized that I wanted and needed to know much, much more about baseball; and, as with such previous childhood obsessions as the Cretaceous Period and the Civil War, I resolved to learn as much as I could about it, as quickly as possible.

The wax Topps pack I received as a party favor was the perfect jumping-off point (or maybe gateway drug) for my new obsession. The 1976 Topps series was, in retrospect, an especially interesting one; along with the usual player cards, it included "'75 Record Breaker" cards, "Sporting News All-Time All-Stars" cards, and "Traded" cards which told of off-season player transactions. Along with the Oakland A's team card (loved those green and gold uniforms!), I also vividly remember getting a Mickey Cochrane "All-Time All-Star," a Hank Aaron "'75 Record Breaker" (he'd surpassed Babe Ruth's all-time RBI mark that year), and the amazing Oscar Gamble "Traded" card.

I mean, seriously, just look at it. LOOK AT IT. Gaze upon its 'fro-tastic beauty, and imagine the wonder and confusion that such an artifact would trigger in the mind of an inquisitive child. I didn't understand why his hat and pinstripes were painted on so poorly that you could practically see the brushstrokes. Not yet hip to things like puns, I didn't understand why the Yankees would be gambling on him. And while I already understood that the afro hairstyle was a symbolic statement of black pride, I simply didn't understand how it would be possible to play ball with that much hair on your head.

As to the last question, I'm frankly still not sure of the answer. Oscar's other cards don't really answer that question, either; dig, if you will, his regular 1976 player card, where it looks the imbalance of his funky 'fro — an imbalance caused by the protective flap of his batting helmet — has actually thrown off his swing.

Or how 'bout his 1973 card, which features a shot taken in '72, when he was still with the Phillies. (The Topps people fooled no-one by airbrushing the "P" off his jersey.) Is he looking back to watch the play at first, or is he trying to figure out which direction his batting helmet has flown off this time?

 

Or his '75 card, where his cantilevered afro puffs look like they'd be fantastically distracting to his peripheral vision?

 

 

However he did it, though, he did it well. As one commenter on the Big Hair Facebook page commented today, too few people remember that Oscar Gamble was more than just the black player with the funkiest 'fro of them all. Discovered by the legendary Buck O'Neil, who was scouting for the Cubs at the time, Oscar played parts of 17 seasons in the big leagues, finishing his career with a respectable .265/.356/.454 slash line, 200 home runs, and a Satanically-perfect 666 RBI. In his prime, he was typically platooned against right-handed pitchers; but even not playing full-time, he was usually good for 15-20 homers per season. (Another cool Oscar fact — for a power guy, he wasn't as much of a free-swinger as you might think, averaging only 56 whiffs per 162 games over his career, while also averaging 62 walks.)

 

Oscar's greatest year came in 1977, when he was Bill Veeck's "rent-a-DH" for the "South Side Hitmen" White Sox: He set career highs with 137 games played, 470 plate appearances, 22 doubles, 31 homers, 83 RBI and 75 runs scored, while hitting .297 with a .386 OBP. His 1978 was something of a disaster; after signing a massive free agent contract with San Diego, he only managed to hit 7 homers for the Padres, and was shipped off to the Rangers as soon as the season ended. Maybe he just hit AL pitching better; in 1979, he hit .358 with a .456 OBP and 19 homers in only 327 plate appearances while splitting the season between the Rangers and the Yankees...

He'd already played for the Yankees in 1976, of course; George Steinbrenner had made him trim his 'fro to a more manageable circumference before he could don real pinstripes, but Oscar didn't seem to mind. Though he'd been tagged as a potential trouble-maker early on in his career, chiefly by crusty old white sportswriters who were freaked out by the sheer unrepentant blackness of his hairstyle, by most accounts Oscar was actually a sweet guy and a true team player. And while his hair may be mostly gone these days (he turns 62 today), the man who once said (regarding the wacky atmosphere in the Yankee clubhouse) "They don't think it be like it is, but it do" will forever be a charter member of the Big Hair & Plastic Grass Hall of Fame team — both for being one of the main inspirations behind my book, and for being part of my initial discovery of the myriad joys of baseball. Happy Birthday, you righteously funky dude!

 

 

Happy Teddy Martinez Day!

I hereby decree that today, December 10th, shall hereby be known forever more as "Teddy Martinez Day".

Yes, I realize that, for aficionados of 70s popular culture, there's really only one Teddy: Teddy Pendergrass — or "TEDDAH," as we lovingly refer to him around the Big Hair & Plastic Grass pad. And Teodoro Noel (Encarnacion) Martinez, who was born today in 1947, was merely a part-time utility man with the Mets, Cardinals, A's and Dodgers from 1970-79, who finished his career with a .240 batting average and a truly odiferous .270 OBP. So why do we celebrate him today? To paraphrase a religious ritual performed by certain people I am related to, why is this Teddy different from all other Teddys?

Simply put, IT'S THE HAIR. Teddy Martinez sported an impressively wide (and sorely underrated) array of hair and facial grooming on his Topps baseball cards. Everyone knows and loves Oscar Gamble's 1976 "Traded" card, and with good reason — but how 'bout some love for Teddy's '76 card? It's like a somebody suited up a G.I. Joe doll with "Life-Like Hair" in Charlie Finley's "Kelly Green and Fort Knox Gold"! ("Kung-Fu Grip not pictured.) The fact that the above card was issued to commemorate a season wherein Teddy hit .172 in 86 games with Oakland (after batting .190 in 16 games with St. Louis earlier in the year), leads me to believe that someone at Topps recognized the intrinsically 'fro-tastic magic of the pic...

But there were other sweet Teddy cards, too. Check out this 1975 one, from the end of his Mets tenure: The 'fro is smaller, but the sideburns, moustache and unibrow are all battling for supremacy...

Teddy didn't actually even play in the bigs during 1976; he spent the entire season in the Reds' farm system, then was picked up by the Dodgers in a Rule 5 draft. He posted the best season of his career in '77, hitting .299 as a backup infielder for Tommy Lasorda's NL pennant winners, and made only a single error in 192 innings at second base. And while Reggie Smith was the Dodgers' most prominent 'fro-sporter, Teddy definitely gave "The Other Reggie" a run for his money in that department, as evidenced by his 1978, 1979 and 1980 cards:

 

So comb your hair out today, and let your freak flag fly; Teddy Martinez would want it that way.

Tiger Tales

The Detroit Tigers have been on my mind a lot this week. Not only are 8.5 games in front of the White Sox in the AL Central, but they look like they have a bona-fide Cy Young AND AL MVP in the form of Justin Verlander. As my friend Peter Schilling, Jr. sagely pointed out this morning, the three times the Tigers had a pitcher who won the MVP, the team won the World Series — 1945 (Hal Newhouser), 1968 (Denny McLain) and 1984 (Willie Hernandez). So, to paraphrase Bill Murray as Carl Spackler, at least we've got that goin' for us...

But along with my slowly-building excitement about the 2011 Tigers, echoes of their 70s past have been inevitably stirring in my brain. Maybe it's because today marks the 34th anniversary of the first time that Alan Trammell and "Sweet Lou" Whitaker took their places at shortstop and second base in a major league game (a 8-6 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway), thus setting in motion a double-play partnership that would last a record-setting 18 years.

Sweet Lou was one of my favorite players as a kid; Trammell less so, though I loved the way they worked together. Brought up in two very liberal households by parents who made it crystal-clear to me that racism was not to be viewed as anything other than utterly dehumanizing bullshit, I found the idea of two players — one black, one white — forming a perfect working partnership more than just appealing; in my mind, it was the way the world (or at least this country) was supposed to work. Maybe they hung out off the field, maybe they didn't; but day in and day out on the diamond, there was no doubt that they had each other's back.

But while today is the historic anniversary of two of the Tigers' most famous players to emerge from the 70s, it's also the birthday of one of their more obscure players from the decade. I'm talking about the late Reggie Sanders — not to be confused with the well-traveled 300-300 Club player of the same name. This Reggie Sanders made his MLB debut with the Tigers on September 1, 1974, just a few days shy of his 25th birthday. He'd already spent seven years toiling in the minors by this point, for both the A's and Tigers organizations, exhibiting some solid "pop" — 47 homers in his first two years of Class A ball — but also some questionable bat control (154 Ks in 482 plate appearances in '69). However, his '74 numbers for the Tigers' Triple-A franchise in Evansville (.292, 14 HR, 88 RBI) were good enough to warrant a September call-up.

Reggie played 26 games for the Tigers in September '74, starting all but one of them at first base. The glow of the Tigers' triumphs in '68 and '72 was fading quickly at that point; Al Kaline was DH-ing out his final season, and longtime first baseman Norm Cash had been given his release n August. (They traded Jim Northrup to Montreal the same day.) Mainstay catcher Bill Freehan, though only 32, played more games at first base that year than behind the plate, in order to keep his still-potent bat in the lineup, while going easy on his aching knees. But with Reggie's call-up, Freehan once again donned the "tools of ignorance," and Reggie took up his corner spot.

While he didn't blow anybody away, per se, Reggie did put up some pretty respectable rookie numbers that fall: .273 batting average, 7 doubles, 3 homers, and 10 RBI in 105 plate appearances. He homered in his first major league at-bat, off of no less than the great Catfish Hunter. (That's Freehan greeting him at the plate in the above pic.) He even had an 11-game hitting streak going at one point, including a 4-RBI performance on September 22 against the Brewers that almost single-handedly helped tag Clyde Wright with his 20th loss of the season. Sure, his OBP was only .308, and he walked only 5 times againes 20 whiffs — but he clearly held his own well enough at the plate (and with the glove, racking up a .987 fielding percentage) that manager Ralph Houk felt confident enough to send him out there every day. And hey, the cat had some killer sideburns...

And yet, no one in the Tigers organization apparently thought enough of Reggie to bring him back to the bigs in '75; instead, they traded him to Atlanta in exchange for rookie Jack Pierce, who would turn out to be one of the Tigers' six first basemen that season, a motley aggregation that including a running-on-fumes Nate Colbert. The 1975 Tigers went 57-102, the second-worst performance in franchise history. They couldn't have used a guy like Reggie Sanders?

Apparently, the woeful Braves had no use for him, either. After two solid seasons in the minors for Atlanta without ever once tasting the proverbial "cup of coffee," Reggie high-tailed it to the Mexican League for a year, then played out '78 in the Orioles and White Sox systems before packing it in. Seems like he deserved another chance in the bigs; but sadly, for some reason, he never got it. Not sure what Reggie did with the rest of his life, but it appears that he died in Los Angeles in 2002, at the age of 52. Rest in peace, man.