Apologies for the silence on this blog for the past two weeks — I
was completely sucked into the insanity of the SXSW music festival in
Austin, Texas. I'm now back and trying to get back up to speed on
everything else in my life, though my post-festival haze isn't making
it easy.
However, it was music to my bloodshot eyes this morning to find that Big Hair & Plastic Grass has received its first official review... and a very favorable one, at that. From Kirkus Reviews:
Epstein, Dan
BIG HAIR AND PLASTIC GRASS: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ’70s
A delightful history of the “weirdness, hairiness, overall
funkiness, and sheer amusement” that was America’s pastime in the 1970s.
By the beginning of the decade, the cultural revolution of the ’60s
had reached a last bastion of tradition, baseball. Drugs, fashion, the
sexual revolution, Black Power and an insistence on quirky
individualism all left their mark on the game. The era began with
Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Dock Ellis throwing a no-hitter in 1970
while on LSD, and ended with the Chicago White Sox “Disco Demolition”
night in 1979 that resulted in the worst on-field riot in baseball
history. In between appeared an array of “charismatic rebels, flakes,
and hard-nosed hustlers” who challenged many conventions of the game.
There was also plenty of good baseball, writes shockhound.com managing
editor Epstein (20th Century Pop Culture, 2002). The author proceeds
year-by-year through the decade, highlighting the great teams, players
and moments: the Oakland As dynasty of the early ’70s; Cincinnati’s Big
Red Machine; Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruth’s home-run record; Reggie
Jackson hitting three home runs in one World Series game. But it’s the
quirkiness of the era and its players that captivates. For a time,
baseball became a game played on an artificial surface that bore no
relation to real grass, and players wore form-fitting polyester
uniforms in “retina-searing color combinations that would’ve made Ty
Cobb choke on his chaw.” Hair was everywhere, from giant Afros to
voluminous mustaches. Epstein also discusses the more serious issues of
the time, such as the struggle of African-Americans to gain entrance to
upper-level positions in baseball, and Frank Robinson becoming the
first black manager, in 1975. By the dawn of the ’80s, the weirdness
was pretty much over, as “team uniforms gradually became, on the whole,
less colorful, and so did the players themselves.”
Baseball fans and non-fans alike will revel in this loving look at a long-gone era.
As Jimmy "JJ" Walker would say, Dy-No-MITE!!! And remember folks, if
this sounds like your kinda thang, you can pre-order my book (which
comes outMay 25) at any of the bookseller links HERE, HERE or HERE.
