About this item
Dan Epstein scored a cult hit with Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging ‘70s. Now he returns with a riotous look at the most pivotal season of the decade.America, 1976: colorful, complex, and combustible. It was a year of Bicentennial celebrations and presidential primaries, of Olympic glory and busing riots, of “killer bees” hysteria and Pong fever. For both the nation and the national pastime, the year was revolutionary, indeed. On the diamond, Thurman Munson led the New York Yankees to their first World Series in a dozen years, but it was Joe Morgan and Cincinnati’s “Big Red Machine” who cemented a dynasty with their second consecutive World Championship. Sluggers Mike Schmidt and Dave Kingman dominated the headlines, while rookie sensation Mark “The Bird” Fidrych started the All-Star Game opposite Randy “Junkman” Jones.
About the Author
Dan Epstein is an award-winning journalist who has written for Rolling Stone, MOJO, the LA Times, Guitar World, Revolver, eMusic, the Jewish Daily Forward and dozens of other print and online outlets. Epstein has worked as a producer at VH-1, an editor at Revolver magazine and the now-defunct ShockHound.com, and is the author of "Stars and Strikes: Baseball and America in the Bicentennial Summer of '76," "Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride Through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s," "Honky-Tonk Tourist: The Night Buck Owens Almost Got Me Killed," and "20th Century Pop Culture". An avid historian of music, baseball and pop culture, Epstein has been dubbed "The Bangs-ian Herodotus of 70s Baseball" by "Cardboard Gods" author Josh Wilker. A Detroit Tigers fan since the mid-70s, he adopted the Chicago Cubs as his National League team in 1980, for better and (mostly) worse. Epstein lives in Los Angeles, and is available for public speaking engagements.
