Big Hair and Plastic Grass

every once in a while a sports book will come along that is not only stats and history but is entertaining as hell. dan epstein has achieved that in "Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s". it chronologically covers baseball through the decade of the 1970's. i first started following baseball religiously in 1976. i learned how to read boxscores, calculate batting averages and e.r.a, and became a complete stats freak which i continue to be today. i was 10 years old in 1976 and was a devout los angesles dodgers fan mainly because my dad was a brooklyn dodgers fan and followed them to los angeles. i was always hearing stories about sandy koufax, don drysdale, and claude osteen. my favorie player was ron cey aka the "the penguin" of the la dodgers. i really started following baseball because of my taking up baseball card collecting. my hometown newspaper only came out three times a week at that time, so boxscores and other dodgers news was very slow in coming. espn was still several years away, broadcast news only had sports on for about five minutes, and there were only two games a week on tv-saturday afternoon baseball and monday night baseball. this week in baseball with mel allen was the only baseball magazine type of show and i watched it religiously every week. dan epstein's book brought back some great memories of my childhood, i got to read alot of stories i had never read before, it made me laugh (the don "pussyface" sutton story was my favorite), and ron cey even got a mention. it also made me realize that baseball in the '70s was more in tune with american society than i realized with the tales of alcohol and drug abuse as well as with the racial tension that was going on in baseball and american society. it is a great read and a must have for any baseball collection.