Big Hair and Plastic Grass

Nancy Faust, Tommy John... and Me

I am incredibly thrilled to accept The Baseball Reliquary's invitation to deliver the Keynote Address for their 20th annual Shrine of the Eternals Induction Day, which will be held Sunday, July 22nd at the Pasadena Central Library. This year's inductees include legendary White Sox organist Nancy Faust and White Sox/Dodgers/Yankees/Angels pitcher Tommy John, both of whom will be in attendance.

The Baseball Reliquary is a nonprofit, educational organization dedicated to fostering an appreciation of American art and culture through the context of baseball history — so it should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me or has read my baseball books that I've a big fan of the organization and its mission for a long time. (I mean, their collections include Dock Ellis's infamous CURLERS, people!)

Previous inductees to the Reliquary's Shrine of the Eternals include such personal heroes as Dock Ellis, Dick Allen, Mark "The Bird" Fidrych, Bill "Spaceman" Lee, Luis Tiant and Jim "Mudcat" Grant, so it will be a huge honor for me to speak at this year's induction ceremonies, especially since Nancy Faust, Tommy John and fellow 2018 inductee Rusty Staub all played such formative roles in my early baseball fandom.

The induction (which is free and open to all) will be held almost three years to the day since Katie and I moved from Chicago to Los Angeles, and I can think of no better excuse to return to Southern California for a few days. If you love baseball and live in SoCal, please mark your calendars for this fantastic event!

 

A 'Fro-Tastic Farewell: Oscar Gamble, RIP

You can't talk about major league baseball in the 1970s without talking about Oscar Gamble. Well, maybe you can, but it's impossible for me to conceive of baseball's funkiest decade without him — which is why, back in 2009, when plans for the publication of Big Hair and Plastic Grass were finally underway, I insisted that the St. Martin's Press art department include his image on the book's cover. And which is part of why my heart is so heavy today after learning about his passing at the far-too-young age of 68.

Oscar Gamble was not a superstar. He finished in the MVP voting only once (in 1977, when his 31 home runs for the White Sox earned him exactly one vote), never made an All-Star team, never led the league in any batting or fielding category, never won a World Series ring. He was often benched against left-handed starters, and only once in the course of his 17-year MLB career (1974, his best season with the Indians) did ever he log more than 500 plate appearances. Though he had a better arm than he was generally given credit for — he threw out 10 runners from the outfield in 1976, and another 12 in 1978 — Oscar's range and glove were a tad below average, and thus he spent over a third of his 1584 career MLB games as a designated hitter.

It's true that a player of his particular caliber (he walked more than he struck out, had a lifetime OBP of .356 and a lifetime OPS+ of 127) would likely be more prized today than he was in an era where Triple Crown stats were the be-all/end-all. And yet, Oscar Gamble epitomizes 1970s baseball to me. There was, of course, that gloriously funky Afro of his — arguably the greatest in the history of the game, and which in its peak state could have accommodated three caps simultaneously — and his even funkier batting stance, where he crouched so low at the plate that his elbows practically touched his knees. Both of those things were beautifully emblematic of baseball in the 70s, an era in which ballplayers finally began to feel free to express themselves on a major league diamond. But while he generally looked like the coolest cat at the disco (and he actually owned one — Oscar Gamble's Players Club in Montgomery, Alabama), Oscar always came to play; and despite his less-than-imposing size (5'11, 165 lbs in his prime), he could easily launch a pitch into the stratosphere whenever that left-handed swing uncoiled. Though never a showboat on the level of, say, Mickey Rivers or Reggie Jackson (to name two of his teammates during his Yankees stints), he was nonetheless tremendously entertaining to watch, in part because he seemed to be enjoying himself so damn much out there.

But beyond all that, Oscar Gamble was an intrinsic part of my own 70s baseball experience — he truly was a cornerstone of my love for the game and its history, and ultimately one of the main inspirations behind my baseball writing. His legendary 1976 "Traded" card was in one of the first wax packs I ever opened, which meant that I knew of him before I knew of Mark Fidrych, Dock Ellis, Bill Lee, Luis Tiant, Dick Allen, Lenny Randle, or any of my other favorite players from the era. Oscar was a starting outfielder for the 1976 Yankees, who played against the Tigers in the very first MLB game I ever attended, and whom I studied at great length during their run through the first post-season I ever paid actual attention to. (Oscar's immortal quote, "They don't think it be like it is, but it do," was in reference to the insanity and dysfunction of the Yankees clubhouse under George Steinbrenner and Billy Martin.)

Oscar enjoyed his finest season as rent-a-player for the 1977 White Sox "South Side Hitmen," who nearly slugged their way to the AL West title, and whom I became obsessed with despite observing from a distance. He was a free-agent bust with the 1978 Padres, who my paternal grandparents took me to see that year when I visited them in San Diego; and the following year, he was traded back to the Yankees while I was visiting the same grandparents at their new digs on Long Island. I rooted for him even when he was playing against teams I rooted for — because, c'mon, how could you root against Oscar Gamble? "He was a sweet, decent man without a single ounce of malice in his heart," Reggie Jackson told the NY Daily News today, "one who came through the door every day with a smile on his face." And even from the stands, or on TV, I could totally pick up on that.

Oscar's 'fro attained its greatest shape and circumference during his 1973-75 stint with the Indians, a period during which he could have easily been mistaken off-field for a member of the Chi-Lites or Rasputin's Stash. I didn't learn until many years after the fact that the Yankees had made him cut it when he was traded to the Bronx from Cleveland, or that said haircut forced him to pass on a possible Afro-Sheen endorsement deal with Johnson Products. I talk about his haircut at length in Stars and Strikes, and also got into it a bit in this "Bicentennial Baseball Minute" video I did a few years back in conjunction with the book.

I've long loved that story, because — even if the world was deprived of what could have been a seriously dy-no-mite Afro-Sheen commercial — it underlined how much of a team player Oscar Gamble really was. Though the Yankees were uptight and old-fashioned about grooming, and he would have been well within his rights to cop an attitude about their edict, he saw the bigger picture. After all, he'd spent the bulk of his career playing for lousy teams in Philadelphia and Cleveland, and he was not about to let a little (or a lot of) hair get in the way of him being part of a contender.

There is a sadder side to that story, though, one which I didn't fully grasp until a year or two ago, when I turned up an interview with Oscar Gamble while digging through some newspaper archives from 1977. In a Chicago Sun-Times article with the headline "Oscar Gamble Sheds Bad Boy Image," Ron Rapoport writes about how Gamble — by all accounts a chatty, affable guy and a dependable teammate — was widely viewed as a "troublemaker" by baseball GMs, simply for having the temerity to groom himself like the proud, handsome black man he was... and that a lot of reporters were flat-out afraid to talk to him because they perceived him to be some kind of black militant in double-knits.

"After I got a haircut [in 1976]," Gamble told Rapoport, "a lot of writers came over and said, 'We didn't talk to you because we thought you were violent.' They just came up and admitted it. That's what the hair meant to them. I just wore it that way because it looked good on me and I looked good in it. It's funny in a way — people always judge people the way they think you should be. You never know what people are thinking. I've always been a nice friendly guy, easy to talk to."

This, in a nutshell, is the side of sports that I've always hated — the side that not only encourages conformity, but also casts character-assassinating aspersions upon those who refuse to knuckle under accordingly, and punishes those who stand up for what they believe. And 40 years later, things haven't gotten a whole lot better on that score — just ask Colin Kaepernick, a gentleman whose own 'fro and ironclad sense of self surely caused Oscar to flash a knowing grin or two. Then again, that's why so many baseball players of the 70s continue to inspire me to this day; they were true to themselves, even when the game's old guard — the owners, skippers, General Managers, journalists and even veteran players — did their best to tamp them down...

It always hurts when one of the favorite players from your childhood dies, especially one who thoroughly embodied the fun, excitement freedom you felt whenever you ran out onto your local diamond as a kid. But Oscar's passing hits me extra hard today, because I'd love to commiserate about it with someone else who's no longer with us — James Saft, a brilliant Reuters columnist and one of my oldest and dearest friends, who passed away in October. One of the first things Jim and I bonded over in high school was our shared Alabama connection; my maternal grandparents lived in Tuscaloosa, and his aunt lived in Greensboro, and we each spent many formative summers in the state, which may as well have been Mars as far as our private-school classmates on the north side of Chicago were concerned. As such, we both shared a particular affection for Bama ballplayers; and Oscar Gamble, who was scouted by the legendary Buck O'Neil while attending Montgomery's George Washington Carver High School, was one of our favorite members of that fraternity. Jim spent the last years of his life in Huntsville with his wife, daughters and dogs, and I would always ask him to keep an eye out for Oscar Gamble's Players Club memorabilia at the thrift shops in Montgomery, whenever he was there. (None ever turned up, but a man can dream, right?) When the rumor of Oscar's passing first hit Twitter this morning while I was still waking up, my first instinct was to drop Jim an email, asking him if he'd heard anything... and then I remembered that I couldn't do that anymore.

And so, unfortunately, it goes; in the words of Hank Williams, another great son of Alabama, I'll never get out of this world alive. But I'm not in the mood to play any Hank right now — I'd rather spin some Delfonics, whose sweet Philly soul strains doubtless caught Oscar's ear early in his playing career, and whose gorgeous "Delfonics Theme" both fills me with the same sense of joy and wonder that I experienced while watching Oscar Gamble in action, and echoes the sadness that I feel now that he's gone. Rest in funky peace, Oscar. And thanks for everything. 

BRUSS!!!

Funky birthday greetings to Phillies (and later White Sox and Cubs) reliever Warren Brusstar, who was born on this day in 1952.

I post his '78 Topps card just about every year on this date on the Big Hair and Plastic Grass Facebook page, because, well, how could you not?

As if Warren's perm n' pornstache combo wasn't righteous enough, the unruly unibrow, gigantic chaw, mesmeric stare and matted chest hair yearning to breathe free all conspire to make this truly one of the most quintessential baseball cards of the 1970s.

Stars and Strikes — Now In Paperback!!!

The first time you see your new book in print is a huge thrill — but it's an almost equally huge thrill to get a paperback edition of said book in the mail, because it means that enough people bought the hardcover version to make a paperback printing worthwhile for the publishers. So I'd like to thank everyone who has already bought Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of '76 for making the paperback possible!

And for those of you who haven't bought it yet — or already did, and dug it enough that you'd like to buy many, many copies for your baseball and pop culture-obsessed acquaintances — the paperback edition officially hits the streets via St. Martins Griffin on February 9. You can pre-order copies from Amazon or Barnes & Noble, or of course from your friendly neighborhood indie bookseller.

I probably won't be doing a ton of reading events in support of the paperback — full-scale book tours require copious amounts of time and money — but I'm sure I'll schedule a few things in Chicago and the Midwest before the summer is out, especially since 2016 is the 40th anniversary of the Bicentennial. Watch this space for future updates!

Wait Until Next Year

Cheer up, Jose!

It's been a really fun season, and 97 wins plus the longest Cubs post-season run in 12 years (PLUS knocking the Cardinals out of the playoffs) is nothing to sneeze at; after all that, there's really no shame in losing to a better team with a ridiculously hot player. Almost everyone worth a damn on this team will be coming back next year, the farm system is deep with prospects, and the Cubs look set to contend for several seasons to come, none of which will bear the burden of endless Back to the Future 2 references. Of course, some additional arms wouldn't hurt — tell Theo to think about picking up David Price, wouldja?

Congrats to my Mets fan friends (and my Mets fan dad) — I thought this would be a tough, evenly matched series, but your team completely dominated it from the get-go. They're a lot of fun to watch, and a couple of your pitchers have truly impressive hair; I'll be rooting for 'em in the World Series against whichever American League team they wind up facing.

José Can You See...

Laugh, José, laugh — for 'twas indeed the cosmic power of your dynamite 'fro that cinched the first Cubs post-season victory in twelve years!

Really wish it had been the Cardinals out in one and a Pirates-Cubs NLDS, but the Pirates would have had to beat the Cards (or, ahem, the Reds) a few more times this season to pull it off. This will, of course, be the first time that the Cubs and Cards have faced off in the post-season — and I expect that the rumbles from this clash will be positively Biblical in nature, not to mention a helluva lot of fun.

Still, the Wrigleyville set should probably hold off on upending trash cans and engaging in celebratory vomiting until the Cubs progress a little further into October. This is just the beginning of the journey — so kick back, smile like José, and enjoy the ride!

Joe Pepitone's Kind Of Town (And Mine, Too)

On July 29, 1970, the Houston Astros sold Joe Pepitone to the Chicago Cubs, ushering in a new and (for a time) happy chapter in the swingin' slugger's career. 45 years later, almost to the day, my wife and I arrived in Chicago to begin the next chapter of our lives — one which will hopefully last substantially longer than Pepi's ultimately stormy tenure in the Windy City.

As any reader of my books, this blog, the Big Hair and Plastic Grass Facebook page or my Twitter account probably already knows, I have a deep affection for Joe Pepitone. While some decry his playboy ways and squandered talent, I think he brought an inimitable, sideburned insouciance to the game, and his newly back-in-print autobiography, Joe, You Coulda Made Us Proud — which totally warped my mind when I first read it at the impressionable age of twelve — remains one of the most entertaining and straightforward player memoirs ever published. So it was a profound and particular joy for me to interview Pepi earlier this summer for Rolling Stone, especially since our conversation turned out to be even funnier and more colorful than I could have hoped.

The resulting Rolling Stone Q&A — which you can read here — got a ton of traction, thanks in part to Joe's revelation that he used to stash various recreational drugs (gifts from Chicago's legendary Bleacher Bums) in the Wrigley Field ivy during games, and then trot out several hours after the game to retrieve them. But given the word-count limitations of the piece, there was plenty of good stuff that I wasn't able to include in the piece. So, now that I finally have a little free time after weeks of packing, moving and unpacking, I can share some other, unpublished gems from our interview:

Me: Reading your book again, I was really struck by how baseball was initially a refuge for you — that it enabled you to get away from the gangs and the problems at home.

Joe Pepitone: You know what it was, Dan? It was a surprise. I never thought about anything; I was a stickball player, and my brother’s team needed an outfielder. I went out there and hit three home runs in one game on a high school field — and I was fourteen years old. There was a scout that saw me, and the whole thing started from there. Even in the minor leagues, I had no expectations of getting to the majors; I just loved the game so much, you know? I was just having fun. [Baseball] allowed me to get away from my strict father. My friends partied their asses off, and I couldn’t do anything. And when my father died at 39 years old, I was free, man; my mother couldn’t hold me back — nobody could. I got a $25,000 bonus when I signed with the Yankees, and I almost spent the whole bonus on my way down to spring training. I bought a car and a boat, bought a dog and put it in the boat, and he was barking all the way down to spring training. [Laughs] Joe DiMaggio, I swear to god, he asked me, “Are you here to play ball or for vacation?” “A little of both,” I told him. Next day, everything was gone — they took everything back. And that’s the way it was, even when I made it to the majors. It was fun, and my father wasn’t around to knock the shit out of me, so I did what I wanted to do. It was all in front of me, man!

I tell ya, you have no idea what fun meant to me, after my father passed away. I loved my father, I adored him — how tough he was, the way he protected his family. But he knew how to do it a different way, you know? He showed his love in a different way. “You’re gonna be good, or I’m gonna knock the shit outta you!” He’d come to my games, and you have no idea how drastic it was. A black guy stepped on my foot one day; it went through my spike, and I was lying on the field and bleeding a little bit. He came out and dragged this sonofabitch off the field, right in the middle of a semi-pro game where I was being scouted, and just beat the shit out of him. The team didn’t want him to come to the games anymore. But I’ll tell you what, man; he was the type of guy that would hit you, and then apologize immediately after that, like, cry apologizing. One time he almost blinded me; he threw an ashtray that shattered in my eyes. I was gonna be signed within a year, and I couldn’t see shit because of the splinters in my eyes. After that, he never raised his hand to me. But then he died soon after that. What are you gonna do?

There’s a memorable story in your book about a couple of mob goons offering to knee-cap Moose Skowron, so that you could take his place at first base for the Yankees.

Oh, there were a couple things like that. They said, “Hey, Joe, we could get you on that first base thing.” I even told Moose about it. [Laughs] Because Moose was always on my ass about my partying. All the Yankees were like that in those days — “Don’t fuck with my money; get home early!” That’s the way it was. They roomed me with Moose one time. He really went to bed at 10 o’clock and drank milk, all that shit. I went out one night with Billy Hunter, and Moose said, “If you’re not home by 1 o’clock curfew, I’m putting the chain on the door.” Shit, I came home about three in the morning, bombed out of my head with Billy Hunter. Sure as shit, the chain was on the door; “Sleep out in the hallway!” he yelled out. I kicked the door down, the chain went flying, and he grabbed me — I weighed 175 pounds at the time, and Moose was like 220. I said, “Ohhh, shit!” The next day, Ralph Houk came to me and said, “You’re not rooming with Moose anymore. He doesn’t want you!” And shit, by ’63, I had Moose’s job. Mantle even told me, “You should send him a telegram saying, ‘I told you so!’” [Laughs] I had a great year that year, and was the only Yankee player who made the All Star starting team.

Houk aside, it didn't seem like there was anyone who was really talking sense to you in those days.

Not really, not really. It’s not like baseball is today, where you’re making a lot of money, and you’ve got coaches paying attention to your injuries, they pay attention to you mentally, you know what I’m saying? They got psychiatrists working for you today. Ralph Houk was good, but there was never no talks about, “Hey, you gotta settle down,” until I didn’t show up one day. Nobody ever sat me down and said, “Hey, Joe, you gotta do it this way.”

Still, as much of a hard-ass as Houk was, it seems like he had a real soft spot for you. He gave you a lot of second chances.

Oh, sure! When you’re going good, they do that. When you’re going good, you can get away with things, and everybody loves you. That’s why I thought I could put a telephone in my locker. [Laughs] And that was the same with Ralph. Ralph was a great, great guy, man. I loved playing for him. Every time I hit a home run, I looked at his face to see what he thought of it. I always hustled; I always did, even with a hangover. [Laughs] I figured if Mickey can do it, I can do it. I tell you what — there was not a day I went on that field where I didn’t want to play well. With my ego, my pride, I was not going up there to strike out and not hustle. That ego sets in, and you want to play, you want to do the best you can.

Okay, who was the toughest pitcher you ever faced?

Who was that guy from Detroit — left-hander, I forget his name…

Mickey Lolich?

Yeah, Lolich. I hit a lot of home runs off that sonofabitch, but he was tough! But the toughest guy I ever faced was Sparky Lyle — all I ever got from him were sliders. I hit a lot of lefties good, but Sparky Lyle, that sonofabitch, I’d come up to the plate, and he’d put his glove up to his face and laugh, like, “There’s no fucking way you’re going to hit me!” [Laughs] He would just fucking laugh. And I’d be there at the plate, saying, “What the fuck are you laughing at?” But I never got a hit off him; he never threw me a fastball, only sliders, sliders, sliders, sliders, sliders. That was his whole thing. Everything was a slider with Sparky Lyle. But I got to know him real well after baseball, and he’s a real fun guy.

(Note: Pepi's recollections totally check out. While he did homer six times off Mickey Lolich — the most he hit off any MLB pitcher — Lolich also struck him out 21 times, eight more times than any other pitcher whiffed him. And he went hitless with one walk in 13 plate appearances against Lyle.)

You arrived in Chicago in 1970 with no small amount of fanfare, right?

Let me tell you what happened. I joined the team in Cincinnati, and we were flying back, and Leo Durocher wanted to talk to me, so I was sitting up front with Leo. Next thing you know, we landed at O’Hare, and this chauffeur with a hat on comes up and yells, “Is Joe Pepitone here? His limousine is waiting!” [Laughs] Leo says, “You ordered a fucking limousine?!?” I said, “No! I don’t know who the fuck this is!" I asked the chauffeur, "Who the fuck are you?” He said, “I’m the Fabulous Howard, and you can use my limousine as long as you’re here in Chicago.” He drove me to the Executive House, and he said, “Joe, listen; I could use the publicity, so you can have my services for free as long as you want.” I said, “Look, as long as I’m going good, I’ll keep you.” And I told Leo that. Next morning, I get a phone call from Fabulous Howard. He says, “Joe! I’m here to take you to the ballpark!” I say, “I’ll be right down — I’m getting dressed!” I come down, and he’s got a line of photographers out there that he’s called for the publicity, and he rolls out this big red carpet for me, and on the end it says, “The Fantastic Pepitone”! [Laughs] The next day it was in the papers. Everywhere I went with him, there was a photographer waiting.

You also opened a bar in Chicago, Joe Pepitone’s Thing. How did that come about?

Oh yeah, The Thing! The guy had this bar, I knew the guy real well, and he was in trouble; I figured I’d help him by giving him ten thousand dollars, but he took the money, gave the place to me and took off! It was mine; I was like, “What am I gonna do with this?” So I made it into like a little dugout thing, the tables were like home plate, bats underneath, all that. Fireplace in the middle… it was nice, a little downstairs place with pictures of players on the wall. Bo Belinsky and his girlfriends from the Playboy Mansion would come down; a lot of celebrities came down. We were going so fucking good, and then after a year they had this drug probe on the whole street; I was the only celebrity at the time who owned a place, so they came down on me. There was nothing going on — it was just a probe, you know what I’m saying? But it got in the papers, and the players were told to stay away; it hurt me, and I gave it up after about a year and a half. Oh yeah, the Thing — it was a fun time.

I’ve been looking everywhere for some kind of memorabilia from the bar. Does any of that even exist anymore?

You should check with my ex-wives; they’ve probably got some of that shit. {Laughs] They got everything else from me, anyway!

The Baseball King of Italy (and more!)

Ballplayer, musician, standup comic, photographer, international man of mystery, and answer to the trivia question "Who was standing at the plate when the NYC blackout plunged Shea Stadium into darkness?" — Lenny Randle is easily one of most interesting dudes I've ever interviewed. Read about him (and his ongoing attempt to turn baseball into a major Italian sport) in my latest piece for Rolling Stone Sports.

And hey, while you're at it, check out my recent Rolling Stone feature on Hunter Pence of the San Francisco Giants, another extremely interesting ballplayer (even if he doesn't think he is). You can also find my recent Rolling Stone feature on Detroit Tigers ace David Price HERE; he may not be as "out there" as the two aforementioned gents, but he's a helluva hurler — and he's the proud papa of Astro, the cutest dog in the majors!

 

Rusty Kuntz Unavailable For Comment

Today is Pete LaCock's birthday, which is practically a national holiday in some of the social circles I frequent.

I always liked LaCock when I was a kid (er, wait...), both for his name and for the fact that his father is Peter Marshall, best known for hosting The Hollywood Squares — though I recently discovered that the elder LaCock (yes, that's the family name) also made a bravura appearance on a spectacular 1982 episode of CHiPs that featured Donny "Ralph Malph" Most as a Gene Simmons-esque rock singer called Moloch.

I met LaCock five years ago at Cubs Fantasy Camp, and found him to be a good-natured gent with an excellent sense of humor, especially in matters pertaining to his last name. He also told me some amazing stories about hanging out at his dad's place in the early 70s with Paul Lynde and Charles Nelson Reilly, who would often joke that young Pete was "playing for the wrong team," if you get my drift.

But I'm sure what all you 70s baseball fans really want to know is: Did Pete LaCock ever face pitcher Dick Pole?

And thanks to the Baseball Reference website, I have determined that it did in fact happen — though only once, on May 29, 1978. LaCock, who was playing first that day for the Kansas City Royals, batted against Pole in the first inning of what would eventually be an 8-2 victory over the Seattle Mariners at Royals Stadium. The Royals had already touched Pole for three runs, but LaCock failed to further beef up the score, flying out to left for the second out of the frame. On this day, at least, the Pole was mightier than LaCock.

Beisbol, Bikel, Chocolate Strawberries and more!

Wrote a lot of fun stuff this week, so just in case you missed any of it...

In light of the thawing relations between the United States and Cuba, I wrote this piece for Rolling Stone on the ten greatest Cubans to play major league baseball, and topped it with El Tiante, above. (Sadly, the limited size of the list precluded the inclusion of Jose Cardenal, Tito Fuentes, Leo Cardenas and El Duque.)

Earlier in the week, I wrote a Rolling Stone piece on Astros second baseman Jose Altuve, one of my favorite current players and MLB's "Secret MVP".

Because there's no rap battle like an 80s Mets rap battle, I wrote this piece for Fox Sports' Just a Bit Outside on the various rap records produced by the '86 Mets, including "Chocolate Strawberry," the immortal collaboration between U.T.F.O., Whistle, The Real Richie Rich and Darryl Strawberry.

I recently did an interview with Paul Francis Sullivan for his great Sully Baseball podcast. We gabbed at length about the Hall of Fame's Golden Era vote, steroids and Fantasy Island, so he broke our chat into Part One and Part Two.

And on a non-baseball-related note, check out my Jewish Daily Forward interview with the legendary Theodore Bikel — 90 years old and still going strong. I asked him about Bob Dylan's controversial electric set at the Newport Folk Festival, but ran out of time before I could ask him about 200 Motels.

Hey, did you know that there's still time to give copies of Big Hair and Plastic Grass and Stars and Strikes to your favorite baseball fan for Christmas? Philadelphia radio host Phil Allen says, "When I was 16, I read Five Seasons by the great [Roger] Angell. Stars and Strikes is the best since... get Big Hair and Plastic Grass too!!" Considering that Five Seasons is my favorite baseball book of all time (well, other than Joe Pepitone's autobiography), that is high praise, indeed...

And finally, today is the birthday of the great Oscar Gamble. I hope you will all celebrate it in a supremely 'fro-tastic fashion.