book review of big hair and plastic grass

every once in a while a baseball book will come along that is not only stats and history but is all encompassing and entertaining as hell. dan epstein has achieved that in "Big Hair and Plastic Grass" a book about major league baseball that covers the entire decade of the 1970's. i first started following baseball religiously in 1976. i was 10 years old and became a devout los angeles dodger fan mainly because my dad was one. i was always hearing stories about sandy koufax, don drysdale, and claude osteen as well as stories about the brooklyn dodgers. my favorite player was ron cey aka "the penguin" because of his running style and his physical stature. i really started following baseball thru beginning my collection of baseball cards. my hometown newspaper only came out three times a week (monday, wednesday, and friday) at that time and this was way before espn and other sportscasts so dodger news was very slow in coming. the only games on tv were on saturday afternoon's game of the week and monday night baseball. i also caught this week in baseball narrated by mel allen as often as i could. dan epstein filled alot of those gaps and ron cey even got a mention. the dock ellis throwing the no-hitter under the influence of lsd and i never knew don sutton's nickname was almost "pussyface" (that explained alot) and other great stories are sprinkled throughout the book. i do remember the mark fydrich monday night game against the new york yankees. it brought back alot of good memories from my childhood as i lived it through baseball. it is a great read and entertaining as hell and i would suggest it for anyone both baseball and the non-fans out there.