Big Hair and Plastic Grass

Ossie Blanco's Greatest Game

Forty-one years ago today, the White Sox beat the Red Sox in a 22-13 Sunday afternoon slopfest at Fenway Park. White Sox leadoff hitter Walt "No Neck" Williams went 5-for-7 with 5 runs scored and 2 RBI, and Luis Aparicio, their man in the two-hole, went 5-for-5 with 3 runs and 3 RBI. But I'd never heard of Ossie Blanco the #3 guy in the White Sox lineup that day, until I looked at the box score this morning.

Originally signed out of Venezuela by the Giants organization, Blanco had been kicking around the minors since 1963, doing time in the Giants, A's and White Sox farm systems. He'd made his major league debut just five days before, on May 26, 1970, and singled off the Royals' Bob Johnson in his second plate appearance that day. Even though White Sox first baseman Gail Hopkins was hitting over .330 at the time, manager Don Gutteridge saw something in Blanco that he liked, and Ossie played his first two games as a starting first baseman, and smacked a pinch-hit single in his third game. May 31 was his fourth game in a White Sox uniform (back when blue was the primary color of said uni), and the third that he started at first. He acquitted himself well that day, going 2-for-5 with 3 RBI and a run scored. Things looked promising for Ossie Blanco...

Alas, it was not to be. By the end of June, he was hitting .167, and was sent back to the minors. He returned to the White Sox in August, but only padded his numbers slightly: He would finish the season with a .197 batting average and — even worse, though the number was the same — a .197 slugging percentage. For even though he had enough of a power stroke to rack up 120 career homers in the minors, Ossie Blanco couldn't manage a single extra-base hit in 66 official at-bats. After the end of the season, he was traded to the Cubs along with Jose Ortiz for Pat Jacquez, Dave Lemonds and Roe Skidmore; Lemonds would start 18 games for the White Sox in 1972, but none of the other players ever amounted to much more than a bucket of tobacco spit.

Ditto, unfortunately, for Blanco's career. Sent from the Cubs to the Indians in what Baseball Reference can only describe as "an unknown transaction" — in exchange for a case of Stroh's, perhaps? — Blanco finally resurfaced in the majors for 18 games with Cleveland in 1974. He hit .194, and once again went without an extra base hit, posting a .194 slugging percentage, as well. He never made it back to "The Show."

In fact, Ossie never had a more productive major league game than that afternoon at Fenway, forty-one years ago today. Still, while his career could rightly be considered a disappointing and forgettable one, you have to hand it to the guy — how many of us have ever driven in 3 runs and helped our team to victory in one of the sport's most legendary ballparks? For one glorious afternoon, at least, Ossie Blanco was a winner. And today, the 41st anniversary of Ossie Blanco's greatest game, we here at the Big Hair & Plastic Grass page raise a cold cup of Champale to his achievement.

Sticking To My Naugahyde Bubble

"Look, Mommy — I found this baseball card in my cereal box! Why are the walls moving and changing colors?"

Anyway, speaking of the late, great Dock Ellis and all things 70s baseball, I'd like to give a grateful tip of the Monstanto Toupee to Tom Jackson of Cornbelt Baseball, who not only wrote a rave review of Big Hair & Plastic Grass, but gave me some very good interview questions to riff off of. You can read the piece here — which includes my list of the Top 5 books that anyone interested in delving further into the magic and madness of 70s baseball should read, as well as a few hints about what my next book is (and isn't) going to be about...

The Other Reggie

Back on May 22, 1976, switch-hitting Cardinals outfielder Reggie Smith harnessed all the funky power of his very impressive 'fro/chops/'stache combo and homered three times — twice batting right-handed and once batting left — driving in five runs in the Cardinals' 7-6 defeat of the Phillies at the Vet.

As my friend Ted Cogswell noted when I posted this factoid and photo on the Big Hair Facebook page, there was something cool about rooting for "The Other Reggie" — Reggie Jackson got all the press, of course, but The Other Reggie was more consistent at the plate and in the field, had a stronger and more accurate arm, and even posted some pretty similar (and in some cases even better) numbers in 1977 and 1978, the Reggies' first two full seasons with the Yankees and Dodgers, respectively. Behold:

1977 Jackson — 606 PA, 93 R, 39 2B, 32 HR, 110 RBI, 74 BB, 129 K, 289 TB, .286 Avg, .375 OBP.

1977 Smith — 603 PA, 104 R, 27 2B, 32 HR, 87 RBI, 104 BB, 76 K, 281 TB, .307 Avg, .427 OBP,

1978 Jackson — 581 PA, 82 R, 13 2B, 27 HR, 97 RBI, 58 BB, 133 K, 244 TB, .274 Avg, .356 OBP.

1978 Smith — 531 PA, 82 R, 27 2B, 29 HR, 93 RBI, 70 BB, 90 K, 250 TB, .295 Avg, .382 OBP.

Of course, Jackson had the charisma, star power and a candy bar; Smith was upstaged on his own team by Steve Garvey, who got all the media attention in LA — but if Smith hadn't been on the team in '77, the Dodgers wouldn't have won the NL pennant that year. Unfortunately, Smith's career hit a pretty hard downward slide beginning in 1979, one that was marked by injuries and an unfortunate 1981 incident where he went into the stands to attack a heckling Giants fan at Candlestick Park; he was out of baseball by 1983.

Still, while Reggie Jackson's five home runs in the '77 World Series have understandably obscured everything else about that particular October Classic, it should be remembered that Reggie Smith hit three dingers for the Dodgers in that Series, thus setting the record for most home runs hit by guys named Reggie in a single World Series. Not only will that record probably stand forever, but it's one more example of how the 70s were clearly the most bad-ass decade in baseball history.

 

 

Hail To The Scuz

This past week marked the 40th anniversary of Ross Grimsley's debut in the majors. Though somewhat overlooked now compared to more high-wattage 70s freaks like Dock Ellis and Bill Lee, Grimsley was one of great eccentrics of the era; exiled from the Reds for refusing to conform to their grooming standards, "Scuz" (as he was known) would often superstitiously forgo showering if he was in the midst of a winning streak, and was accused by Billy Martin of throwing a spitball-like pitch using an excess wad of grease hidden in his hair — an unkempt mane so revolting, umpires refused to stick their hands into it to see if Martin's complaints were factually-based.

Grimsley also occasionally wore turquoise contact lenses — thus earning him the "Crazy Eyes" sobriquet — consulted witches, beaned (and injured) a heckler in the stands during a 1975 game in Boston, and collected nude photos sent to him by fat, hairy women. He was also a damn good pitcher, going 18-13 with 17 complete games and a 3.07 ERA in 295.2 innings for Baltimore in 1974, and winning 20 games (against 11 loses) with 19 complete games and a 3.05 ERA in 263 innings for Montreal in 1978 — becoming, in the latter case, the only hurler in the too-short history of the Expos to win 20 in a season.

My man Shawn Anderson over at The Hall of Very Good uses an image of Grimsley as the mascot for his (very fine) site, and he's pulled out all the stops this week to come up with a wide array of celebratory "Scuz" content, including artist renderings of Scuz, interviews with some of Grimsley's teammates, reprints of pieces by Cardboard Gods' Josh Wilker and Cooperstown Confidential's Bruce Markusen, and this interview on 70s baseball with yours truly. Dig into it if you get the chance — unlike Scuz's 'do, you can rest assured that there's nothing (too) disgusting lurking within.

Look To Your 'Fro For A Warning

I have been consistently, gratefully blown away by the degree of acclaim and interest that Big Hair & Plastic Grass has received since its release nearly a year ago. But to get an email completely out of the blue from Tim Cronin of Monster Magnet — quite possibly my favorite band of the last 20 years — telling me that Magnet frontman Dave Wyndorf (pictured above in his lair) turned him on to BH&PG, and how much they both dug it, and how great a job I did of capturing the vibe of the decade...well, it doesn't get a helluva lot cooler than that.

See, for those of you unfamiliar with Monster Magnet's mind-frying catalog, the band has always been about capturing and distilling all the freaky, bad-trip aspects of the '70s, and rendering them in musical form. So, if my book passes muster with these cats, then that's about the best review I could possibly receive. Here's an interview I did with Dave a while back, which goes fairly in-depth into the band's roots and inspirations. And here's a link to Tim's very cool blog, Ugh!, which covers everything from baseball to Monster Magnet tour diaries to pop cultural detritus (like old vinyl album inserts) to memories of growing up in the '70s. In other words, it's right in my wheelhouse — and if you're reading this post, it's probably right in yours, as well.

 

R.I.P., Harmon Killebrew

The news of Harmon Killebrew's passing makes me really sad. I was too young to have been a fan of "The Killer" (or "Hammerin' Harmon," or "The Fat Kid," as he was also known); by 1975, the first year I started paying any attention at all to baseball, he was already playing out the final season of his career, uncharacteristically attired in Royals blue. But in my mind, he always seemed like a Paul Bunyan-esque throwback to the mythical days when gentle giants walked the earth, a barrel-chested slugger from a time when 573 career home runs was truly a Mt. Rushmore-esque total. I mean, look at that bad-ass 1973 Topps card, above — you just KNOW that next pitch is gonna end up somewhere deep in the left field bleachers...

Harmon didn't get a lot of page time in Big Hair & Plastic Grass, because the 60s were really his era; after All-Star seasons in 1970 and 1971 (he was one of six future Hall of Famers to homer in the '71 All-Star Game), his career was definitely on the downhill slide by 1972. But he was, by all accounts, a real sweetheart, a great teammate, courteous to umpires, patient and generous with fans; again, a throwback to a clean-cut time that never really existed. Harmon struggled bravely with a number of medical issues after he retired, including the esophageal cancer that finally took his life. Even in his final days, he fought that struggle with the same Hall of Fame grace that characterized the rest of his life. In a season of bad news for Minnesota Twins fans, this is really the capper.

Rest in peace, Fat Kid. Thanks for showing us how it should be done.