Big Hair and Plastic Grass

Luis Vs. Reggie

One of the supremely frustrating things about being a student and fan of '70s baseball is how little surviving game footage is out there. Not that there was ever that much to go around in the first place; until Ted Turner came along, baseball's owners were too worried about the effects that television would have on their immediate bottom line — i.e., Why would people pay to come to the ballpark if they could sit at home and watch the games for free? — to consider exploring the possibilities of broader regular-season promotion via the cathode ray.

In the pre-cable world, unless you had a local television station that broadcast games from your closest regional team on the weekends — I can still hear WDIV's "Catch the Tigers at 4!" promo in my head to this day — you pretty much had to make do with NBC's Monday Night Baseball (which ABC would pick up in '76) and Game of the Week if you wanted to see the guys on your baseball cards come to life. Since "day baseball" wasn't exclusively a Cubs concept back then, Game of the Week typically aired on Saturday afternoons, and would usually feature some of the better teams in action.

Which brings us to this short but delicious clip of Luis Tiant facing down Reggie Jackson during a July 22, 1972 contest at Fenway Park. The A's, resplendent in their gold v-neck jerseys, green-and-gold caps, white pants, white shoes and mustaches, were on their way to their second-straight AL West title and their first of three straight World Series championships. The more conservatively-garbed Red Sox would go on to lose the AL East to Billy Martin's newly resurgent Detroit Tigers by half a game — but they probably wouldn't have made it nearly that close without El Tiante, whose 15-6 record and league-leading 1.91 ERA capped a remarkable personal comeback for a guy who'd gone 9-20 in 1969, and was widely considered washed-up by 1971.

Aside from his penchant for cigars and expensive toupees, El Tiante was most famous for his arsenal of picturesque windups, including one where he would turn all the way back to second base before spinning around to face the batter. We don't get to see that particular windup here — probably because the speedy Bert Campaneris is on second — but it's still a treat to see the crafty Cuban doing his glove-wiggling screwball boogaloo. It's also a treat to see Fenway without any ads on the walls, and to watch even a snippet of a broadcast that isn't overloaded with graphics, or where the commentators — in this case, Curt Gowdy and Tony Kubek — don't feel compelled to fill up every second with their commentary. There's something really beautiful about just hearing the sweet summery murmur of the crowd as Tiant takes the sign from Bob Montgomery, checks Campy at second, and delivers. Those, as Lou Reed once sang, were different times.

Save The Dates

 

Okay, '70s baseball and pop culture fans — not only is Big Hair & Plastic Grass going to drop on May 25, but I've also got plenty o' related readings and events coming up this spring and summer. I will fill you in on specific times and details once I've got 'em, but for now please save the following dates like Rollie Fingers would save a crucial game:

Wednesday, May 26 — Brooklyn, NY: Big Hair & Plastic Grass party at The Bell House, featuring live music, DJs, gourmet hot dogs and other surprises.

Thursday, June 10 — Los Angeles, CA: Big Hair & Plastic Grass reading at Stories in Echo Park, followed by an after-party at the Shortstop with DJs (and possible special guests) throwin' down '70s grooves.

Thursday, June 24 — Chicago, IL: Big Hair & Plastic Grass party at Liars Club, with DJ John San Juan spinning the '70s AM gold.

That's right; in the immortal words of Grand Funk Railroad, I'm coming to your town to help you party down... so please come and help me celebrate not only the publication of my book, but also everything that was sublime and ridiculous about '70s baseball and pop culture. More events and readings to come in these and other cities, as well, so stay tuned...

Big John

 

John Mayberry was kind of anomalous on those great Royals teams of the '70s. They had all these guys like Amos Otis, Willie Wilson, Hal McRae and (of course) George Brett, contact hitters who could spray balls all over the astroturf at Royals Stadium, as well as win games on the basepaths or in the field. And then there was slow-moving Big John, who always seemed to be either sending a moonshot into the ballpark's fountains, or rippling the waters with the breeze from another third strike uppercut.

But though he was certainly a feared slugger in his day (especially in 1975, when he placed second in the AL MVP voting thanks to a .291 BA, 34 HR, 106 RBI season), I never realized that the two-time All Star actually had his own tribute record — until now! It's nowhere near as funky as Albert Jones' "Vida Blue," but check it out...

I Like Ike

April 13 will most likely be over by the time you read this, but it's a date that's notable in the annals of '70s baseball for two reasons. On this day in 1978, in celebration of Reggie Jackson's first-inning homer, Yankee fans deluged the field with the free Reggie Bars they'd been handed on the way into Yankee Stadium. And on this day in 1942, Isaac "Ike" Brown was born in Memphis, Tennessee.

A utility man in the truest sense of the term — he played every position but pitcher and catcher during his five-plus years in the majors, while never playing more than 70 games in a single season — the late Mr. Brown didn't have the most distinguished major league career. He was, however, considered a favorite by both the players and fans of the early-'70s Tigers, all of whom appreciated the burly gentleman's extremely positive attitude. "He  was a very popular player with his teammates," said Tigers catcher and broadcaster Jim Price, who played three seasons with Brown. "A great role player and also a great fighter. He roomed with Gates Brown, who said Ike would wake up every morning saying, 'It's a beautiful day' whether it was or not. You have to love a person with that kind of outlook."

What's perhaps most interesting about Brown's relatively short career in the majors is that he appears to have been the last Negro Leaguer to reach the bigs. A member of the fabled Kansas City Monarchs while still in his teens, Brown avoided the brutal grind of Negro League bus trips by befriending the legendary Satchel Paige, who would let the youngster ride from game to game with him in his gold Cadillac. The Tigers signed him in the early '60s, but he would spend eight seasons tearing up the minors before they finally called him up to Detroit in 1969. The ballclub, one of the last in the majors to add black players to its roster (only the Boston Red Sox waited longer), went through most of the 1960s with only three African Americans on the team — Willie Horton, Gates Brown and Earl Wilson, and one more "Brown" just didn't fit their concept. It's impossible to say, of course, but perhaps Ike would have flourished in the majors in a more enlightened age.

In any case, other than the occasional wry aside about how he played "Designated Sitter" on those early '70s Tigers teams, Brown was too much of a class act to complain. He was also a man of style; in addition to sporting one of the funkiest pairs of specs in the bigs, Ike apparently had a serious shoe habit. Jim Price again: "I also remember that Ike loved alligator shoes. He saved up all his shoe coupons that he'd get for doing post-game interviews, then went over to the store and emptied the shelves of alligator shoes." To which we can only say, "Right On!"

Kong

Dave "Kong" Kingman: No player looked tougher in the Chicago Cubs' ridiculous "blue pajamas" unis; no slugger (with the possible exception of Willie Stargell and Reggie Jackson) hit longer home runs during the 1970s; and no home run champ besides Barry Bonds ever radiated as many bad vibes.

The only player in history to homer with four different teams in the same season (Mets, Padres, Angels and Yankees in 1977), Kingman also may have been the most exciting career .236 hitter to have ever played the game. His strikeouts were thunderous; his home runs even more so. And his other hits... well, he generally didn't get a whole lot of those. 

Kingman's best season came in 1979, when he led the league with a career-best 48 taters and .613 slugging percentage, while hitting a career-high .288 and driving in 115 runs, all for a Cubs team that finished fifth in the NL East with an 80-82 record.

Bouyed by his success in Chicago, Kong tried to capitalize on his local celebrity by opening up an eatery called Kingman's Landing — perhaps the least successful celebrity restaurant in Chicago history. Speaking from the perspective of someone who spent many of their formative years in the Windy City, Chicagoans will eat just about anything if it's served up under the aegis of a gen-yoo-wine celebrity; but whether due to its lousy location (in a shitty neighborhood several miles west of Wrigley and the lakefront), or just Kingman's personal stockpile of negative charisma, the nautical-themed sandwich shop and ice cream parlor closed pretty quickly. Hard to believe that locals didn't flock from miles around to slurp up such delicious fare as "Kingman's 10 on Deck" and "Peanut Butter and Jelly." Mmm-mm good!

Advancing the Runner

One of the most underrated heroes of the '70s Yankees, Roy White was a master at advancing the runner — which came in handy, as he often batted in the two-hole behind Mickey "Mick the Quick" Rivers. And that, dear readers, as about as much creativity I can manage on a Monday morning, when attempting to tie in the advance blurb that Big Hair & Plastic Grass just received courtesy of the Wall Street Journal:

“I used to tell people ‘You had to be there.’ Well, now you don't have to have been there. You can relive the color, the passion, the wild, raucous fun of baseball in the '70s in Big Hair and Plastic Grass. Dan Epstein and baseball in the '70s go together like Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon.” — Allen Barra, Wall Street Journal

Thanks mucho, Mr. Barra! (Say, you wouldn't happen to have Ms. Sarandon's cell number, would ya? I hear she's single these days, and still lookin' fine...)

Anyway, I digress. Don't forget that you can pre-order Big Hair & Plastic Grass from Amazon, or from Barnes & Noble, or via the indie bookseller of your choice. It comes out May 25, just in time for Father's Day — and right around the time that your favorite team has decided that 2010 will be a "rebuilding year." And if you're doin' the Facebook thing these days, be sure to become a fan of the Big Hair & Plastic Grass Facebook page, where all kindsa groovy folks (including some major leaguers from the era) have been posting their memorabilia and sharing their memories of this amazing era.

Mike Cuellar: RIP, Crazy Horse

The above pic is of something we'll probably never see again — a four-man pitching rotation, where all four hurlers notched 20 or more victories each in the same season. Mike Cuellar, Pat Dobson, Jim Palmer and Dave McNally achieved that rare feat during the 1971 season — the 1920 White Sox are the only other team to pull it off. And now, with the sad passing of Cuellar from stomach cancer, all but Palmer have gone to the great pitching mound in the sky.

Cuellar, of course, had the coolest hair of the four (though Dobson's sideburns were pretty damn impressive), as well as the coolest nickname: Crazy Horse, purportedly awarded by his O's teammates in honor of his many rituals and superstitions. A native of Cuba, Cuellar hated pitching cold weather — "I belong to hot weather," he often said. "Cold weather no good for baseball or me." According to this fine post from The Hardball Times, the crafty lefty always ate Chinese food the night before he pitched, always wore blue suits when traveling to games in other cities, and steadfastly refused to accept a thrown ball from a teammate at the beginning of an inning — he insisted on picking it up from the ground. ""Mike had a lot of things that he had to do," former Orioles outfielder Paul Blair told the Baltimore Sun. "But whatever he did, it worked."

Indeed, Cuellar's rituals generally seemed to bring him good luck — he won 20 or more games in 1969 (when he tied for the AL Cy Young award with Denny McLain), 1970, 1971 and 1974, pitched in three World Series, and even smacked a grand slam off of Cy Young winner Jim Perry in the 1970 ALCS — though he had the misfortune to run out of steam before free agency kicked in. The man that Jim Palmer has described as "arguably the best left-hander in the game from 1969 to 1974" retired in 1977, having never made more than $45,000 in a season. And yet, by all accounts, Cuellar never exhibited any bitterness over having missed the gravy boat, or that he had to take a gig at a golf course to make ends meet when younger and far less talented guys were making more in a single season than he'd made in his entire career. The comments sections of his many online obits are already overflowing with stories of his kindness, his positive attitude, his mischevious spirit, and his love of both baseball and life.

But my favorite quote about Cuellar is this one from former O's first baseman Boog Powell, who told the Baltimore Sun that "Miguel was a magician out there. He made hitters look comical, like they could have swung three times before the ball got there. A couple of times, I almost had to call timeout because I was laughing my head off...I adored the way he pitched and loved playing behind him. It was fun, like when you were a kid. You felt like yelling, 'Hey, batta, batta, batta ... ' "

Rest In Peace, Crazy Horse. Baseball could sure use a few more colorful and classy cats like you.