Tag Archives: baseball

For-Real Interviews

For-Real Interview: Dan Epstein

bighair.jpgAs a kid, I was fascinated by 1970s baseball. The huge afros, the amazing facial hair, the retina-burning uniform designs–it seemed like such an insane, colorful era, particularly when compared to the heavily moussed 80s, where I spent most of my kid-dom. (Of course, there were some colorful characters then, too, but that’s a tale for another time.)

Whenever I had some disposable income (which was not often), I would spend it at a baseball card convention or store, usually on a large plastic box filled with completely worthless cards from 1977 or 1975, just so I could savor such sartorial majesties as Willie McCovey’s sideburns. My elementary school library had these slim books on each major league team, all published in the mid-’70s, which I borrowed repeatedly. And whenever my grampa took me to Cooperstown, I’d seek out the unbelievable mini-exhibit on the technicolor uniforms from those years (sadly, no longer there).

While there are some chronicles of players and teams from the 1970s (The Machine and Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning are great, recent examples), there haven’t been many (if any) retrospectives about the decade in total. When people speak of a Golden Age of Baseball, they usually save such mythologizing for the 1950s and its stainless, sepia-tone heroes.

But now there is finally an evangelist for game as played in the Me Decade. Journalist Dan Epstein has penned a love letter to 1970s baseball entitled Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride through Baseball and America in the Swinging 70s. ESPN’s Rob Neyer has said of this tome, “What the 1960s were to America, the 1970s were to baseball, and Dan
Epstein has finally given us the swinging book the ’70s deserve.” The book drops May 25 from Thomas Dunne Books, and there will be a big ol’ release party at the Bell House in Brooklyn on May 26 (I for one am excited to try the Oscar Gamble hot dog that will be served there).

Dan was generous enough to take some time out of his busy schedule and answer some questions via email about Astroturf, day-glo erseys, the best Topps card designs, and the worst promotions of all time. Read all about it after the jump.
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Baseball

Your Math Teacher Was Right: Graphs Can Be Fun!

I have no idea how this escaped my notice up until this point. But I’ve seen several people post and/or tweet about it in the past few days, so allow me to jump on the bandwagon way too late.

This thing is a site called Flip Flop Fly Ball, wherein artist Craig Robinson has created a whole slew of awesome baseball-related infographics. These graphs answer such questions as, how long did it take to assemble (and disassemble) the 1986 Mets? If bases were literally stolen, how much would it cost each team? How do the Indians reflect the Native American population of Cleveland? (As you might guess, not very much.)

And the best one of all: a complete box score for “an Eastern Division Tiebreaker Game that Exists in My Head” between the Wu-Tang Clan and the E-Street Band. As you might expect, the starting pitchers were RZA and The Boss.

This just scratches the surface. There’s a buffet of awesomeness here–including an 8-bit page header with many subtle nods to baseball touchstones both real and fictional (see if you can figure out what “game” is referenced on the scoreboard). So click and enjoy.

Baseball, Videocracy

Oh Japan, You’ve Done it Again!

Paxarcana’s twitter page pointed me to this amazing video originally posted at Dvorak Uncensored: Japanese hitting coach bats baseball straight up a rope. For real.

So not only have the Japanese conquered the Real Baseball world, they’ve also cornered the market on Pete Maravich-esque baseball trickery. That’s it, we give up. You guys win.

How long before this is an event on Unbeatable Banzuke?