Big Hair and Plastic Grass

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...

Don't Call Him Chicken, Call Him "Motormouth"

There is funky, and then there is FON-KAY. And this grease-stained lid from a bucket of English's Fried Chicken — emblazoned with the grinning visage of Baltimore Orioles centerfielder Paul Blair — is truly the FON-KAY-est piece of baseball memorabilia I've ever laid eyes on. Wonder how much it would fetch from a collector... of baseball OR fried chicken memorabilia? (Thanks mucho to the blog Bob Lemke's Stuff for utterly blowing my mind with it.)

Blair, who turns 68 today, was a friendly, hard-hustling, eight-time Gold Glover with the Orioles. He hit .474 in the 1970 World Series, and made appearances in five other Fall Classics — '66, '69 and '71 with the Orioles, and '77 and '78 with the New York Yankees. You might also know "Motormouth" as the guy who Billy Martin sent out to replace Reggie Jackson in right field in the middle of the 6th inning on June 18, 1977 at Fenway Park, sparking Martin and Jackson's infamous dugout brawl.

Sweet medallion he's wearing in the photo below. Wonder if that was a zodiac pendant? Paul's an Aquarius, baby...

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

 

 

Heavy Artillery

I usually try to wrap a Big Hair & Plastic Grass blog or Facebook page post around a player's birthday or an anniversary of a particular event, but I stumbled across this clip today on YouTube, and it's too good to keep under my ballcap until next June 10.

On June 10, 1975, the New York Yankees, who were enduring their second season of shared tenancy with the Mets at Shea Stadium, while their beloved "House That Ruth Built" was being renovated — dig the Yankees' "seating chart" below — presented a 21-gun pre-game salute in honor of Army Day, celebrating the 200th anniversary of the formation of the U.S. armed forces. The results, however, were more slapstick than stirring.

Though they were loaded with blanks, the army cannons — which were placed on the warning track, facing away from the diamond — still produced enough concussive power to knock down part of the centerfield fence, set another section of the fence ablaze, and knock out several car windows in the Shea parking lot. I've found the mention of this unintentionally amusing event in several sources, including Sparky Lyle's immortal memoir The Bronx Zoo, but this is the first time I've ever seen any actual footage. As I wrote in BH&PG, "Anyone looking for a convenient metaphor for the Pentagon's botched handling of the Vietnam War, or the chaos and danger of New York City circa 1975, wouldn't have had to look much further."

 

Short Takes

God Bless Bill Veeck. No baseball owner before or after him has ever brought as much love, passion and innovation to the game. And even when he got it wrong, he got it gloriously, unforgettably wrong — like with 1979's Disco Demolition Night, or 1976's uniform shorts.

The White Sox bermudas were so ugly, so ill-conceived, so utterly traumatizing, that they've wound up looming larger in the imaginations of Sox fans (and baseball fans in general) than they perhaps deserve. To this day, I continue to meet people who INSIST that the Sox wore them for the entire 1976 season, when in fact they didn't actually make their official debut until August 8, 1976, when the Sox played the Royals in the first game of a Sunday double-header. Despite their own embarrassment and the merciless mocking of their opponents, the hapless Sox (who would finish the season with a 64-97 record) actually beat the soon-to-be AL West champs 5-2 while wearing shorts.

There are two statistical oddities that stand out for me in that box score. First off, future Hall of Fame reliever Rich Gossage (pictured above) — who had been converted to a starter for 1976, a conversion that would be permanently reversed as soon as the Sox traded him to the Pirates over the winter — notched his lone save of the 1976 season in that game. Second, the White Sox managed to steal FIVE bases in the game, probably because the Royals figured they wouldn't risk skinning their knees on a hard slide into second. Two of the swipes were by Sox speedsters Jorge Orta and Pat Kelly, but Jerry Hairston, Jack Brohamer and Jim Essian all nabbed their first steals of the season in that game; Essian, a man who would steal only 9 total bases in 12 major league seasons, stole his first career bag that day. Royals catcher Buck Martinez must have been laughing too hard to get off a decent throw.

The other, more understandable myth about the shorts is that they were only worn once; however, they made at least two more regular-season appearances before the weather turned cold that year. The weekend of August 21-22 saw them donned twice against the Orioles. The shorts-clad Sox actually beat the far superior O's 11-10 on the 21st; Ralph "Roadrunner" Garr (pictured above) doesn't look too happy about being called in to pinch-run while wearing such leg-bearing fashions, but he still managed to steal a key base in the 9th before scoring the game-tying run on Pat Kelly's single. Alas, the magic of the shorts didn't hold up the next day, when they lost 6-2 in the first game of a double-header, thanks to Reggie Jackson's pinch-hit grand slam off of Terry Forster in the top of the 9th. Home movie clips from that game can be see in this awesome YouTube video, which includes some choice shots of Comiskey Park, Reggie's grand slam, a between-games beer crate-stacking competition, and of course the infamous shorts.

And that was it for the White Sox shorts... or was it? The Topps 1977 White Sox team card shows the team once again outfitted with them, but I'm pretty sure it was just a shot that was left over from 1976 and (humorously) recycled for the '77 card series. I'd swear on a stack of Dock Ellis hair curlers that that's Terry Forster at the far left of the back row and Pat Kelly third from left in the front; both players were shipped off to other, better teams (Pittsburgh and Baltimore, respectively) shortly after the '76 campaign ended.

Regularly namechecked at the top of "worst/ugliest baseball uniforms" lists, the White Sox shorts have yet to be revived for any sort of "throwback night" festivities. Whaddaya think, folks? Is it time for the shorts to make a comeback, even if only for a night?

It Was 32 Years Ago Tonight...

...that WLUP DJ Steve Dahl blew up a stack of disco records in the outfield at Comiskey Park, triggering a field invasion by hundreds of stoned rock fans. Equally thrilling and moronic, "Disco Demolition Night" has been endlessly debated ever since by pop cultural and social historians, many of whom continue to cast the event as a racist/homophobic rally and/or the final nail in the coffin of disco music. It was, in fact, neither. Disco continued to thrive well into 1980 — "We Are Family," the theme song of the Pittsburgh Pirates as they fought their way to a World Series championship in 1979, was about as disco as you could get — before going underground and mutating into house music, electro, etc., etc. And while some of the revelers in attendance may well have been racist or homophobic (working class white Chicagoans have never been known for their tolerance or open-mindedness), the event was really more about rock fans worrying that their precious rock n' roll was being supplanted by disco. Sure, it seems pretty silly now that anyone could have worried that Led Zeppelin or The Who would be somehow eradicated from the airways; but at the height of disco, this was a real worry for rockers of a conservative stripe.

There are several clips from "Disco Demolition Night" floating around on YouTube, but this one is my favorite. For one thing, you see the White Sox players on the field, preparing to play their second game of their double-header against the Tigers — only to retreat as the field suddenly swells with revelers. For another, you get to see and hear Sox broadcaster Jimmy Piersall completely lose his shit as the promotion gets way out of hand, and opining that there are many things (including swimming) that are more worthwhile than making an unauthorized dash onto a baseball diamond. In other words, it's a pretty priceless time capsule that's sure to make Chicagoans of a certain age chant "Coho! Coho!"

 

 

And It Was 35 Year Ago Today...

...that Oakland A's owner Charlie O. Finley, desperate to get something in exchange for three of his stars before the free agency boom blew him out of the water, sold Joe Rudi and Rollie Fingers to the Red Sox and Vida Blue to the Yankees, in exchange for a total of $1.5 million. The deal was quickly (and controversially) voided by Commissioner Bowie Kuhn, who invoked his usual "best interests of baseball" justification, prompting Finley to rail against him as "the village idiot" in the press.

While the move would have certainly strengthened both teams, it's hard to say whether it would have appreciably changed the outcome of the 1976 AL East race, which the Yankees won by 10.5 games over the Orioles, and a whopping 15.5 games over the third-place Red Sox. At the time the deal was announced, Billy Martin's boys were already six up on Boston, and would go 65-40 the rest of the way. It's also unlikely that the addition of Vida Blue would've seriously helped the Yankee cause in October — he would've been a better choice for Game One of the World Series than Doyle Alexander, to be sure, but the Yanks really lost the Series at the plate and on the basepaths.

In any case, while Kuhn didn't officially void the deal until June 18, none of the three players had a chance to play for their "new" teams — though Rudi and Fingers did suit up for Boston. The above pic shows longtime Red Sox third baseman Rico Petrocelli welcoming Rollie (whose famous handlebar moustache is unfortunately somewhat obscured) to the Fenway clubhouse...

BIG HAIR & PLASTIC GRASS Book Signing — March 12 In West Covina, CA

Now that the baseball season is blessedly imminent, it's time once again to start pimpin' out Big Hair and Plastic Grass, and spread the gospel of '70s baseball. And while pimpin' ain't easy, as Biggie Smalls once said, it sure is fun — especially when I get to be part of something as cool as this upcoming event at the West Covina Public Library.

The event, held in conjunction with the Baseball Reliquary's awesome Baseball for the Fun of It! exhibition, will be held Saturday, March 12, from 3 pm to 5 pm at the West Covina Public Library (1601 West Covina Parkway, West Covina, CA). I will be signing and selling copies of BH&PG, as well as participating in a discussion about several of the more memorable baseball promotions of the 1970s, including "Ten-Cent Beer Night" in Cleveland, "Wet T-Shirt Night" in Atlanta, and of course the infamous "Disco Demolition Night" at Comiskey Park. The program will also feature a DVD screening of the 2004 documentary, Disco Demolition 25th Anniversary: The Real Story, which takes an in-depth look at the still-controversial promotion.

The program is is made possible, in part, by a grant to the Baseball Reliquary from the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, and is FREE to all. If you're in the Los Angeles area, come on out and join the fun!

It Was 31 Years Ago Today...

Yep, July 12 marks the 31st anniversary of "Disco Demolition Night" at Comiskey Park. Gallons of ink have already been spilled on this collision of the Grand Ol' Game and '70s pop culture, not least by me. So instead, I'll just share with you this fascinating chunk of footage that I haven't seen before: Nearly eight minutes of Sox broadcaster Jimmy Piersall freaking out while the field invasion is in full swing. Enjoy!