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...

Moon and the Penguin

It was Ron Cey's birthday on February 15; I posted a birthday tribute to him last year (complete with grisly evidence of the Dodger third baseman's short-lived music career), but I couldn't let this week go by without posting this weirdly awesome pic of "The Penguin" in the Dodger Stadium with 70s rocker Moon Martin.

Not sure what the circumstances were surrounding this photo — maybe Martin was there to sing the National Anthem? Or maybe give Cey some musical advice (as in, "Don't quit yer day job")?

In any case, I'm guessing this was taken in 1979, when Martin's profile was at its highest; his song "Rolene" (which had also been covered by Mink DeVille, who also waxed a rendition of the Martin-penned "Cadillac Walk") hit the Top 30 that year, and Robert Palmer had an even bigger hit that year with a recording of "Bad Case of Loving You (Doctor, Doctor)".

With the exception of Davey Lopes' 28 homers and Rick Sutcliffe's Rookie of the Year performance (17-10, 3.46 ERA), '79 was a pretty grim year for the Dodgers; beset by injuries to their pitching staff, they finished third in the NL West at 79-83, the team's only sub-.500 record of the 1970s. So maybe Moon stopped by in an attempt to liven things up around Chavez Ravine — though from this pic, it looks like he caught a bit of the '79 Dodger malaise, as well.

In any case, "Rolene" is a track I remember fondly from the fall of 1979, a time when power pop — in the form of singles like Blondie's "Dreaming," Bram Tchaikovsky's "Girl of My Dreams" and The Knack's "Good Girls Don't" — was making a noticeable dent in disco's domination of AM radio. It may have only been a minor hit, but it's a skinny-tie classic, nonetheless...

One More For (And From) The Kid

The tragic passing of the great Gary Carter brought up a lot of memories of "The Kid," on the Big Hair & Plastic Grass Facebook page and elsewhere. One of my favorites, which I forgot to mention in yesterday's post, was from the 1979 All-Star Game.

The 50th edition of the Midsummer Classic was a quintessentially 70s affair, played indoors and on artificial turf at the Seattle Kingdome, and featuring special "guest appearances" by the San Diego Chicken, Morganna the Kissing Bandit, and "Rockin' Rollen" Stewart, aka that freaky bearded dude with the rainbow afro wig. And, of course, there was a fantastic array of brilliantly-colored polyester uniforms on display.

It was also — with the possible exception of the 1970 game that the NL won in extra innings when Pete Rose bulldozed Ray Fosse at the plate — the most exciting All-Star Game of the decade, a hard-fought 7-6 contest that the NL finally won in the top of the ninth on a bases-loaded walk from Ron Guidry. Dave "The Cobra" Parker was named the game's MVP for his thrilling defensive contributions — namely, nailing Jim Rice at third in the 7th inning with a laser-like throw, and then cutting down Brian Downing at the plate in the 8th with a perfect strike to Gary Carter. Parker's pegs are rightly celebrated to this day, but people tend to forget what a great play Carter made on the other end of that 8th-inning lightning bolt; he positioned himself perfectly to make the play, then hung on to make the tag. If Buster Posey had followed The Kid's example, he wouldn't have spent most of last season on crutches. Check it out:

Farewell To The Kid

Hall of Fame catcher Gary Carter passed away today at the all-too-young age of 57, tragically taken down by some relentlessly vicious brain tumors. It's a sad day for a lot of baseball fans out there; I know my NY/NJ friends who still vividly remember "The Kid" leading the Mets to the World Series title in 1986, are especially broken up.

To me, however, Carter will always be an Expo, a key member of the 1976 team that played its final games at the quaint and tiny Jarry Park, the 1977 squad that moved into the ill-fated Olympic Stadium, and the Dick Williams-led 1979 powerhouse that surprised the shit out of the National League and very nearly beat the "We Are Family" Pirates to the NL East title. I was thousands of miles away from Montreal (a beautiful city that I've only visited once, long after the Expos were no more) at the time, but I was fascinated by that '79 Expos squad. Bill Lee, Steve Rogers, Scott Sanderson, Ross Grimsley and the unfortunately named Dan Schatzeder in the rotation; a surprisingly tough bullpen that featured both a 39 year-old Woodie Fryman and a 21 year-old David Palmer, as well as wily vets Stan Bahnsen, Rudy May and Elias Sosa; Tony Perez at first base; the unbelievably bad-ass outfield of Ellis Valentine, Andre Dawson and Warren Cromartie; and, of course, the perpetually-smiling (yet totally hard-nosed) Gary Carter behind the plate.

Carter was 25 that year, already playing in his fifth full major league season. He hit .283 with 22 home runs, 26 doubles, 5 triples, and 75 RBI; he also threw out 47% of the guys who attempted to steal a base on him that year, and made only 9 errors all season. It was a fairly typical season for "The Kid," who managed to play 'til the early 90s, making post-Mets stops in San Francisco and Los Angeles before returning to Montreal for one final season. A fan favorite everywhere he played, Carter was also widely respected by the fans whose teams he played against; you hated to see him in the lineup, but you couldn't hate on the man himself — he was just too good, too "pro", too obviously filled with the joy of being able to play baseball for a living. How could you hate a guy like that?

And now the man, "The Kid," is gone. It'd be easy to say that a little bit of my childhood has left with him; but every time I see a clip of the guy in action — even in this sweet 7-Up commercial from 1980 — it takes me right back to the same joy I felt when I was a kid running onto a baseball diamond, going to a ballgame, or opening up a wax pack of Topps cards and finding Gary Carter in there. Rest in Peace, Kid. You'll always be a part of us.

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!

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:

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 "No Neck" Day!

No time to do a lengthy post, but I couldn't let the day pass without wishing a funky birthday to the great Walt "No Neck" Williams, who turns 68 today.

This hard-hustling 5'6" fireplug played parts of 10 seasons in the majors, from 1964 to 1975. He had his best years with the White Sox (he hit a career-high .304 with 22 doubles for them in 1969), but I had to post his 1974 Cleveland Indians card because of the brilliant way it captures his inimitable look.

Bad-ass sideburns? Check. Equally bad-ass tinted aviator shades? Check. Warm-up jacket with shortened sleeves worn UNDER the jersey? Check. Neck? Clearly absent.

Fergie and the Panamanian Flash

This one goes out to a loyal Big Hair & Plastic Grass fan named John, who sent me a nice note yesterday to say how happy he is to see the BH&PG blog up and running again. He closed with, "December 16th is my birthday. Come up with something special."

Well, first of all, funky birthday greetings to ya, John. I wish I could tell you that you share a birthday with a 70s baseball great, but alas that's not the case. You did, however, narrowly miss sharing a birthday with Hall of Famer Fergie Jenkins, who turned 69 three days ago; and since today is Adolfo Phillips' b-day, and the two are forever connected in Cubs history, I figured maybe we'd go for a little "two for the price of one" action, as Larry Williams and Johnny "Guitar" Watson might say...

Phillips' parents picked a bad time to name him Adolfo; he was born in Bethania, Panama on December 16th, 1941, just five days after Adolph Hitler declared war on the United States and all its holdings, including the nearby Panama Canal. But if young Adolfo's parents were harboring any Nazi sympathies, history doesn't record it; in any case, a bat and a glove would be his weapons in his quest for greatness, not a Panzer division or V-2 bombs.

Actually, Phillips' most lethal weapon was his speed. Nicknamed "The Panamanian Flash," it was said that the guy could easily go from first to third on an infield grounder, or score all the way from first on a single. In 1962, his second year in pro ball, Phillips stole 46 bases out of 50 attempts for the Magic Valley Cowboys, the Phillies' Pioneer League (Class C) farm team; he also hit .330 with 33 home runs that year. Three more successful seasons in the minors followed, and Adolfo looked like a can't-miss prospect; at least, that's what the Cubs thought in early 1966 when they traded half of their regular pitching rotation — Larry Jackson, who'd led the NL with 24 wins just two years earlier, and former Braves great Bob Buhl — for him, a backup 1B/OF named John Herrnstein, and an inexperienced fireballer from Canada named Ferguson Jenkins.

Touted as "the next Willie Mays" by Cubs skipper Leo Durocher, Phillips did flash some moments of brilliance as the Cubs' starting centerfielder — like the time he hit four homers in a June 1967 double-header against the Mets — but he never showed any consistency at the plate. (It probably didn't help that Leo usually batted him eighth, allowing opposing pitchers to pitch around him; in 1967, he led the NL with 29 intentional walks.)

Phillips was also plagued by stomach ulcers; behind that confident smile (as displayed above on his 1971 Topps card), was a sensitive cat who was literally being eaten up inside by the pressures of playing major league ball. On June 11th, 1969, the Cubs shipped him to Montreal for utility man Paul Popovich. Some folks like to speculate that the Cubs would have "gone all the way" in '69 if Phillips had remained in centerfield, but his stats that year with the Expos — .216/.286/.337 with 4 homers and 7 RBI in 220 plate appearances — don't exactly point to a potential North Side savior. Phillips did a little better in 1970, posting a slash line of .238/.352/.379 with 6 homers and 21 RBI in 254 plate appearances; but he lost his centerfield gig in 1971 to the much-young Boots Day, and spent the entire season in the minors. The lowly Indians picked him up for the '72 season, but even they couldn't find a place in their lineup for the Panamanian Flash. By 1973, Phillips was out of pro ball for good.

The story of Fergie Jenkins, that fireballing throw-in from the Phillies-Cubs deal, turned out much differently, of course. Beginning in 1967, he posted six-straight 20-win seasons for the Cubs, including 1971, when he went 24-13 with a 2.77 ERA; along with wins, he led the NL in games started (39), complete games (30) innings pitched (325), and walks per nine innings (a phenomenal 1.0), numbers which helped net him the NL Cy Young. (Vida Blue won the AL Cy Young that season, making it the first time that two African-American pitchers won the coveted award in the same year.)

Alas, Fergie's impressive streak was broken in 1973, when he went 14-16 with a 3.89 ERA. He bristled at the way that new Cubs manager Whitey Lockman handled the pitching staff; the fact that he only completed 7 games that season (after completing at least 20 the previous six) speaks volumes on that particular issue, as does the fact that — after being traded to the Texas Rangers in the off-season for Bill Madlock and Vic Harris — Fergie rebounded with a 25-12, 2.82 ERA performance in 1974. (He also led the AL in complete games with 29, and finished just a hair behind Catfish Hunter in the Cy Young voting.)

I posted the following clip a few days ago on the Big Hair & Plastic Grass Facebook page, but here's another chance to check it out. It's an amazing hour-long documentary, called King of the Hill; made by the National Film Board of Canada, it follows future Hall of Famer Fergie and his Cubs teammates (including Ron Santo, Randy Hundley, Billy Williams, Don Kessinger and Joe Pepitone) through the ups and downs of the '72 and '73 season, including their transition to the polyester pullover jerseys. No fan of 70s baseball should miss it...