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Big Hair and Plastic Grass
- A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s
- Narrated by: Dan Epstein
- Length: 12 hrs and 54 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Bronx Is Burning meets Chuck Klosterman in this wild pop-culture history of baseball's most colorful and controversial decade.
The Major Leagues witnessed more dramatic stories and changes in the 70s than in any other era. The American popular culture and counterculture collided head-on with the national pastime, rocking the once-conservative sport to its very foundations. Outspoken players embraced free agency, openly advocated drug use, and even swapped wives. Controversial owners such as Charlie Finley, Bill Veeck, and Ted Turner introduced Astroturf, prime-time World Series, garish polyester uniforms, and outlandish promotions such as Disco Demolition Night. Hank Aaron and Lou Brock set new heights in power and speed, Reggie Jackson and Carlton Fisk emerged as October heroes, and All-Star characters like Mark "The Bird" Fidrych became pop icons.
For the millions of fans who grew up during this time, and especially those who cared just as much about Oscar Gamble's afro as they did about his average, Big Hair and Plastic Grass serves up a delicious trip down memory lane.
What listeners say about Big Hair and Plastic Grass
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- Andy
- 02-25-21
Excellent but biased
I could have done without the liberal bias of the author seeping in every now and then. Otherwise it is a great “read”.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Clint
- 12-15-20
To much liberal politics
Author has a nostalgia for the Carter administration. Need I say more? Definitely a liberal tilt to this book.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Hebern
- 07-12-19
It was ok. Could have been more.
In the mid 70's I was a kid obsessed with baseball and Pete Rose. This book brought back a lot of good memories. There is a lot of stuff about Rose and the Reds here since they were one of the big stories of the 70s. It detailed a lot of World Series games I can remember watching on tv with my dad when he was alive which was nice. If you were a fan of one of the dominant teams of the decade, then there is a lot for you here. It also had some 70s baseball trivia that was pretty cool. Especially the story about a kid working in the A’s clubhouse who looked so much like Hank Aaron that the As players called him Hammer, Aaron’s nickname. The kid later became a rapper and used the nickname as part of his stage name— MC Hammer. I wish the book had gone into more of such stories. The stories we very good. The behind the scenes stuff. Overall, it was a stat driven summary of the decade in baseball. I know baseball is a sport of stats, but for an audiobook it's hard to deal with a lot of numbers. It kept my interest, but it seemed like it could have been much better. The author read it. He shouldn’t have. A pro could have made it a better audio experience.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Patrick M. Monaghan
- 12-30-21
Interesting Topic Marred By Politics
There are interesting stories at times, but this is marred by both the acutal author's narration style and the use of politics throughout. Seems better to be a swinger than a Republican.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Tom Rerko
- 09-04-21
Ok story but very anti capitalism
Decent, not great story. Author's dislike of anything concerning capitalism or any redeeming qualities of ownership, absent Bill Veeck, is embedded strongly in the story. Fair book but glad I listened as part of membership and didn't waste a credit on ir.
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- Arthur Spence
- 01-16-21
Great
Outstanding book about baseball in a wilder time...now I’m just typing to meet the minimum word requirement for a review
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- Kindle Customer
- 01-18-22
A dry look at a colorful era.
A dry look at a colorful era.
Epstein's 2009 "Big Hair and Plastic Grass" had so much potential for an in depth look at one of the weirder decades in modern America and by extension, American baseball. Anybody who has ever looked at a baseball card from the 1970s knew that something was "off" about that decade. From the garish uniforms to the more garish facial hair, the 70s were a supremely weird decade for the National Pastime.
Epstein's book *almost* gets there in its year-by-year history of the decade but ultimately misses the mark as the book feels like a series of disconnected anecdotes weighted down by row upon row of stats. While there is some discussion of changes in uniform styles and grooming standards, mostly what we get is just a lot of game recaps.
The year-by-year approach hampers Epstein's effort as it forces him to recap each season instead of a more thematic format. The thematic format still bleeds through as we hear stories about the same wacky promotions and garish uniforms in several different places. Epstein also spends WAY too much page space to the Reggie Jackson and his travels throughout the decade (and the Yankees in particular). This is obviously a product of author bias, but the constant "...when we last left Reggie" became distracting.
Overall, the 1970s were weird and wild enough and there are enough wacky stories and characters that it was hard to make this a *bad* book. It's not bad by any means, but it could have been so much better.
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- Amazon Customer
- 12-08-21
Epstein hits a home run!
The author sets the book up chronologically and takes you through baseball in the 1970’s. Stories, stats, and happenings in society are told in such a way that will take you back to the 70’s in each chapter. Could have done without the liberal political rant near the end, but would definitely would recommend this book.
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- SouthwestDude
- 09-25-23
Fun but ruined by narration
How in the world do you write a book about 1970s baseball and then narrate it and mispronounce the player’s names? Aargh! So maddening. I mean - you can’t get Mark Belanger and Doug Decinces right? It takes away a bit of the author’s credibility.
The book is well researched and written and I did truly enjoy it. I recommend it but please don’t use the pronunciations around fans who remember that era.
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- Keith Powe
- 09-05-23
Brought me back and filled in a lot of holes
Absolutely FANTASTIC book. I became a baseball fan at the age of 7 years old in 1976. I was a fanatic, memorizing stats, player backgrounds, anything that I could learn from baseball cards. This book filled in the gaps about things that I didn't know. Great stories of teams, uniforms, owners, salaries. Just great info! The author kept me intrigued the entire time. Highly recommend to any baseball fan. (I did disagree with the author about the ugly Astros uniforms. Those are awesome!!!)
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Story
Baseball's Golden Age comes alive through the voices of men who were there. Selected from the original tapes on which Lawrence S. Ritter based his classic book of baseball history, The Glory of Their Times is a collection of wonderful tales that paint a vivid and evocative picture of a lively young America and the giants who starred on her ballfields, legends like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, and many others.
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A Game Winning, Grand Slam!!!
- By Richard on 09-28-05
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The Bad Guys Won
- A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform - and Maybe the Best
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Jeff Pearlman
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted body parts) of fans everywhere. But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin's left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake-hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox.
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Maybe 3.5
- By Lifeisshort on 02-15-22
By: Jeff Pearlman
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How Baseball Happened
- Outrageous Lies Exposed! The True Story Revealed
- By: Thomas W. Gilbert
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The fascinating, true origin story of baseball - how America’s first great sport developed and how it conquered a nation.
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superb reading. ate it up in 2 days.
- By Bill on 01-13-22
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The Greatest Summer in Baseball History
- How the '73 Season Changed Us Forever
- By: John Rosengren
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 10 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In 1973, baseball was in crisis. The first strike in pro sports had soured fans, American League attendance had fallen, and America's team—the Yankees—had lost more games and money than ever. Yet that season, five of the game's greatest figures rescued the national pastime. Hank Aaron riveted the nation with his pursuit of Babe Ruth's landmark home run record in the face of racist threats. George Steinbrenner purchased the Yankees at a bargain basement price and began buying back their faded glory.
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Terrible, Just Terrible.
- By Anonymous User on 06-12-23
By: John Rosengren
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The Bullpen Gospels
- Major League Dreams of a Minor League Veteran
- By: Dirk Hayhurst
- Narrated by: Ray Porter
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Upon its release, The Bullpen Gospels was a direct hit to the New York Times best seller list. With comparisons to Jim Boutons’s Ball Four, The Bullpen Gospels is slated to be a classic of the genre.
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Outstanding book very well written
- By Susan on 10-19-10
By: Dirk Hayhurst
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The Boys of Summer
- The Classic Narrative of Growing Up Within Shouting Distance of Ebbets Field, Covering the Jackie Robinson Dodgers, and What's Happened to Everybody Since
- By: Roger Kahn
- Narrated by: Phil Gigante
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This is a story about young men who learned to play baseball during the 1930s and 1940s, and then went on to play for one of the most exciting major-league ball clubs ever fielded, the team that broke the color barrier with Jackie Robinson. It is a story by and about a sportswriter who grew up near Ebbets Field, and who had the good fortune in the 1950s to cover the Dodgers for the Herald Tribune. This is the story about what happened to the team when their glory days were behind them.
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Classic book!
- By Christopher Arthur on 11-19-17
By: Roger Kahn
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The Glory of Their Times
- The Story of the Early Days of Baseball Told by the Men Who Played It
- By: Lawrence S. Ritter
- Narrated by: Lawrence S. Ritter, Fred Snodgrass, Sam Crawford, and others
- Length: 4 hrs and 52 mins
- Abridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Baseball's Golden Age comes alive through the voices of men who were there. Selected from the original tapes on which Lawrence S. Ritter based his classic book of baseball history, The Glory of Their Times is a collection of wonderful tales that paint a vivid and evocative picture of a lively young America and the giants who starred on her ballfields, legends like Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Walter Johnson, and many others.
-
-
A Game Winning, Grand Slam!!!
- By Richard on 09-28-05
-
The Bad Guys Won
- A Season of Brawling, Boozing, Bimbo Chasing, and Championship Baseball with Straw, Doc, Mookie, Nails, the Kid, and the Rest of the 1986 Mets, the Rowdiest Team Ever to Put on a New York Uniform - and Maybe the Best
- By: Jeff Pearlman
- Narrated by: Jeff Pearlman
- Length: 10 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
It was 1986, and the New York Mets won 108 regular-season games and the World Series, capturing the hearts (and other assorted body parts) of fans everywhere. But their greatness on the field was nearly eclipsed by how bad they were off it. Led by the indomitable Keith Hernandez and the young dynamic duo of Dwight Gooden and Darryl Strawberry, along with the gallant Scum Bunch, the Amazin's left a wide trail of wreckage in their wake-hotel rooms, charter planes, a bar in Houston, and most famously Bill Buckner and the hated Boston Red Sox.
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Maybe 3.5
- By Lifeisshort on 02-15-22
By: Jeff Pearlman
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How Baseball Happened
- Outrageous Lies Exposed! The True Story Revealed
- By: Thomas W. Gilbert
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The fascinating, true origin story of baseball - how America’s first great sport developed and how it conquered a nation.
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superb reading. ate it up in 2 days.
- By Bill on 01-13-22
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The Wax Pack
- On the Open Road in Search of Baseball's Afterlife
- By: Brad Balukjian
- Narrated by: Brad Balukjian
- Length: 9 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Is there life after baseball? Starting from this simple question, The Wax Pack ends up with something much bigger and unexpected - a meditation on the loss of innocence and the gift of impermanence, for both Brad Balukjian and the former ballplayers he tracked down. To get a truly random sample of players, Balukjian followed this wildly absurd but fun-as-hell premise: he took a single pack of baseball cards from 1986 (the first year he collected cards), opened it, chewed the nearly 30-year-old gum inside, gagged, and then embarked on a quest to find all the players in the pack.
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Clever idea, lackluster results
- By Keith on 06-19-20
By: Brad Balukjian
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Billy Ball
- Billy Martin and the Resurrection of the Oakland A's
- By: Dale Tafoya
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 8 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In the early 1970s, the Oakland Athletics became only the second team in Major League Baseball history to win three consecutive World Series championships. But as the decade came to a close, the A's were in free fall, having lost 108 games in 1979 while drawing just 307,000 fans. Free agency had decimated the A's, and the team's owner, Charlie Finley, was looking for a buyer. First, though, he had to bring fans back to the Oakland Coliseum. Enter Billy Martin.
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Better Options
- By Mark on 03-08-22
By: Dale Tafoya
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Future Value
- The Battle for Baseball's Soul and How Teams Will Find the Next Superstar
- By: Eric Longenhagen, Kiley McDaniel, Keith Law - foreword
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 18 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
For the modern major-league team, player evaluation is a complex, multipronged, high-tech pursuit. But far from becoming obsolete in this environment - as Michael Lewis' Moneyball once forecast - the role of the scout in today's game has evolved and even expanded. Rather than being the antithesis of a data-driven approach, scouting now represents an essential analytical component in a team's arsenal. Future Value is a thorough dive into the world of the contemporary scout - a world with its own language, methods, metrics, and madness.
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Fantastic material needing an accompanying PDF
- By Tyler Burch on 08-27-20
By: Eric Longenhagen, and others
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Try Not to Suck
- The Exceptional, Extraordinary Baseball Life of Joe Maddon
- By: Bill Chastain, Jesse Rogers, Ben Zobrist - foreword
- Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
- Length: 6 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
With his irreverant personality, laid-back approach, and penchant for the unexpected, Joe Maddon is a singular presence among Major League Baseball managers. Whether he's bringing clowns and live bear cubs to spring training or leading the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series victory in 108 years, Maddon is always one to watch. In Try Not to Suck, ESPN's Jesse Rogers and MLB.com's Bill Chastain fully explore Maddon's life and career, delving behind the scenes and dissecting that mystique which makes Maddon so popular with players and analysts alike.
By: Bill Chastain, and others
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Dynastic, Bombastic, Fantastic
- Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, and Charlie Finley's Swingin' A's
- By: Jason Turbow
- Narrated by: Jason Turbow
- Length: 11 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The Oakland A's of the early 1970s were the most transformative team in baseball history. Never before had an entire organization so collectively traumatized baseball's establishment with its outlandish behavior and business decisions - or with its indisputable winning record: five straight division titles and three straight championships. The high drama that played out on the field was exceeded only by the drama in the clubhouse and front office.
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Great insight, funny story on the A's!
- By Jay T on 08-05-21
By: Jason Turbow
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A Damn Near Perfect Game
- Reclaiming America's Pastime
- By: Joe Kelly, Rob Bradford - contributor
- Narrated by: L.J. Ganser
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Baseball’s most outspoken fireballer brings the high heat—calling out the hacks, cheats, and ridiculous rules that have tarnished the game—and pitches A-plus stuff on how to make baseball pure, fun, and damn near perfect.