Hairs vs. Squares Read online

  Hairs vs. Squares

  Hairs vs. Squares

  The Mustache Gang, the Big Red Machine, and the Tumultuous Summer of ’72

  Ed Gruver

  University of Nebraska Press | Lincoln and London

  © 2016 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska

  Cover image © Associated Press

  All photographs in the gallery are used by permission of Ron Riesterer/Photoshelter.

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Gruver, Ed, 1960–

  Hairs vs. squares: the mustache gang, the big red machine, and the tumultuous summer of ’72 / Ed Gruver.

  pages cm

  Includes bibliographical references.

  ISBN 978-0-8032-8558-3 (cloth: alk. paper)

  ISBN 978-0-8032-8817-1 (epub)

  ISBN 978-0-8032-8818-8 (mobi)

  ISBN 978-0-8032-8819-5 (pdf)

  1. Baseball—United States—History—20th century. I. Title.

  GV863.A1G78 2016

  796.357'6409047—dc23

  2015031805

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  Contents

  List of Illustrations

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Epilogue

  Bibliography

  Illustrations

  1. Oakland A’s slugger Reggie Jackson

  2. Pete Rose sliding into second base

  3. A’s owner Charles O. Finley and manager Dick Williams

  4. Charlie Finley’s mechanical rabbit Harvey

  5. A’s aces Jim “Catfish” Hunter, Vida Blue, and Ken Holtzman

  6. A’s skipper Dick Williams and his team

  7. Cincinnati shortstop Dave Concepcion

  8. Oakland Coliseum scoreboard

  9. A’s ace reliever Rollie Fingers

  10. Reds third base coach Alex Grammas and victorious A’s

  11. Reds second baseman Joe Morgan and Oakland’s John “Blue Moon” Odom

  12. Mike Epstein, Dave Duncan, Joe Rudi, and Sal Bando celebrate

  Prologue

  This book is three decades in the writing.

  It was written in phone interviews through the years with Vida Blue, Gene Tenace, Don Gullett, Al Oliver, Bruce Kison, Harmon Killebrew, and Tony Oliva, among others. It was written in a card show interview with the late Jim “Catfish” Hunter, who graciously invited me to pull up a chair and talk awhile; in on-field interviews with Reggie Jackson and Jim Palmer; in a meeting with Mickey Mantle, who along with teammate Whitey Ford named a certain young Cincinnati Reds player “Charlie Hustle”; and in an interview with Alvin Dark, who recalled his memories of managing the A’s in the mid-1970s.

  There was a dugout chat with Don Zimmer, who in ’72 was San Diego’s rookie skipper; a memorable BP session in which an aging but still effective Pete Rose lined frozen ropes at Veterans Stadium and an interview with Rose years later; and a 2014 interview with Mike Schmidt, considered by most the greatest third baseman ever and a Phillies rookie in 1972. And finally this book was written with the help of former media and front-office people—the late and legendary Hall of Fame sportscaster Curt Gowdy, A’s announcer Monte Moore and his Reds counterpart Tom Hedrick, general manager Buzzie Bavasi, Phillies longtime public relations director Larry Shenk, and Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist Bill Lyon.

  The telling of this story begins on July 15, 1972. I was twelve years old and going to the original Yankee Stadium for the first time. I had been to big league games before. In 1969 I sat in Shea Stadium and watched Tom Seaver fire fastballs for the Miracle Mets. I had only seen Yankee Stadium—“the Stadium,” as it was known to fans—on the black-and-white screen of the Zenith TV in our living room. In Kearny, New Jersey, where I grew up, my father John, older brother Mike, and I watched the Mets on WOR Channel 9 and the Yankees on New York’s WPIX Channel 11. The latter was famous for its reruns of Jackie Gleason’s The Honeymooners and rebroadcasts of Laurel and Hardy’s March of the Wooden Soldiers on Thanksgiving Day and the Yule Log every Christmas Eve.

  Walking inside Yankee Stadium, seeing for the first time its famed interior—the emerald green expanse of Death Valley in left field, the monuments in deepest center field, the trademark façade—was unforgettable. Framed by a bright blue sky that day, Yankee Stadium was truly a green cathedral. Seemingly coming down from the heavens were the resonant tones of public address announcer Bob Sheppard, a man said to have the “voice of God.” The afternoon air was thick with the scent of cigars, and to this day that smell is enough to transport me in memory back to that summer day at the Stadium.

  The A’s were attired in green, gold, and white uniforms; white cleats; and turn-of-the-century mustaches that were revolutionary in the clean-cut, conservative world of Major League Baseball. The Yankees wore traditional pinstripes that perfectly reflected their big-city background. Oakland won as Ken Holtzman beat fellow lefty Fritz Peterson. Bobby Murcer homered for New York, and Jackson and Sal Bando launched countering shots for Oakland. Reliever Rollie Fingers wrapped things up for the A’s in the ninth, as he would so many times that season.

  The soon-to-be-famous Mustache Gang went on to claim the first of its three straight world championships with a wild seven-game victory over the Big Red Machine in the most competitive Fall Classic in history. Four of the seven games have been ranked by baseball historians to be among the greatest ever in the World Series.

  “Our 1972 World Series was more than amazing,” remembers Nancy Finley, the daughter of Carl Finley who served as maverick Oakland owner Charles O. Finley’s right-hand man during the A’s glory years. “I’m still searching for the word to describe this feeling.”

  The Swingin’ A’s, as they were known, were a team of character and characters—Reggie, Rollie, Catfish, Campy (Bert Campaneris), Sal, Vida Blue, Dick Green, Joe Rudi, et al. I have covered the World Series, playoffs, and All-Star Games, and one thing I have come to realize is that baseball is built in part on personalities. In the early 1970s, an era in which one’s personal appearance was often a political statement, the free-spirited, long-haired, and mustachioed A’s represented the California youth movement, campus protests at UCLA, and the counterculture.

  “All the people in this modern generation identified with the Athletics,” Charlie Finley told The Sporting News after being named “Man of the Year” in 1972. “They saw us as their mod team. We were their symbol.”

  Conservatives considered the A’s hippies and Yippies, clothed in Technicolor uniforms and conjuring up images of acid Westerns. Even their surnames and nicknames—Green, Blue, Blue Moon—were as colorful as a painter’s palette. Like the swashbuckling outlaws of the popular Western movie of that era—Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid—sports fans looked at the A’s and wondered, “Who are those guys?”

  The A’s may have had more costume changes than Elton John, but they played a game that was fundamentally sound. NBC-TV Game of the Week color analyst and former Yankees shortstop Tony Kubek stated that the A’s biggest asset was the fundamentals insisted upon by manager Dick Williams. They excelled at sacrificing runners into scoring position; they could hit the cutoff man. In short, they executed.

  The Mustache Gang protested the stereotypes stuck on
them because of their appearance: “They called us renegades, a bunch of hippies from California,” recalls A’s catcher and first baseman Gene Tenace, who earned the 1972 World Series MVP award. “But it doesn’t matter what you look like. Can you play? And they found out we could play.”

  Motown furnished the sound of young America in the early ’70s; the Swingin’ A’s, the look of young America. Oakland’s opponents in the 1972 World Series, the Cincinnati Reds, were seen as defenders of the traditional values. Their general manager, Bob Howsam, believed white cleats like those worn by the A’s made players look like clowns, and he thought their outlandish uniforms resembled a Sunday school softball team.

  The A’s were acrimonious and contentious. Alvin Dark, who took over as Oakland’s manager in 1974 and helped lead the team to a third straight World Series title, remembered the Mustache Gang as a talented team that battled the baseball world and itself. Team captain Sal Bando likened the club to an encounter group. Their emotions and passions were raw and on display. When an A’s player struck out, he would often fling his bat to the ground in disgust or slam his batting helmet on the dugout bench.

  The Reds, by contrast, had team rules against helmet tossing. When a player reached base, he did not throw his helmet toward the first-base coach. Instead he waited for the coach to come to him and then politely handed him the helmet.

  Typical team flights for Oakland’s wild bunch saw players barely settled into their seats before half a dozen portable stereos emitted a loud mix of rock music. Beer was in abundance, as were advances toward stewardesses. On one flight an inebriated A’s player threw punches at teammates blocking his path to the bar.

  Reds’ road trips saw players wearing ties to restaurants. Dress codes were enforced on plane trips as well, and alcohol was not served. Stewardesses often complimented Cincinnati players for being the nicest team they dealt with.

  In appearance and style of play, the A’s were throwbacks to the rowdy, raucous St. Louis Cardinals “Gashouse Gang” of the Depression-era 1930s. The Reds, in contrast, invited comparisons to the businesslike Yankee clubs of the early ’60s. Just as the Bronx Bombers were built to take advantage of the unique dimensions of Yankee Stadium, the Big Red Machine was constructed to take advantage of its home—spacious, carpeted Riverfront Stadium.

  Among those fascinated by the Reds’ style were a young Greg Maddux and his older brother Mike. In wiffle ball games in the family’s backyard, Greg, who turned six the day before Opening Day in 1972, would imitate his favorite player, Pete Rose. While Mike went into his windup, Greg would crouch like Rose in an imaginary batter’s box and announce the play like broadcasters: “Here’s Pete Rose, looking for the first hit of the game. Here’s the pitch. . . .”

  Some saw the two championship clubs in the simplest terms possible. The Reds represented Middle America; big, broad-shouldered, and uncomplicated, they were John Wayne in cleats. The A’s were more malleable: Marlon Brando method actors in a complex modern world.

  With the game’s biggest stage serving as a backdrop, the 1972 Fall Classic was billed as a collision between the Hairs and the Squares. “Pete Rose, Johnny Bench, Joe Morgan, and the rest of the Reds were clean-cut and conservative; they looked like businessmen,” Tenace recalls. “We had long hair, mustaches, and colorful uniforms. We looked like bikers on a month-long bender.”

  This wasn’t a World Series, Reds star Johnny Bench recalled in his autobiography. It was a war between the Old and New Orders, with the players in between. This mash-up of the Mustache Gang and Big Red Machine, the Hairs and the Squares, the avant-garde and the conservative mainstream, struck some as surreal. The collision of cultures symbolized the ’70s. To paraphrase outlaw journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who was on the presidential campaign trail in ’72, there was fear and loathing at the Fall Classic.

  Yet amid the chaos the teams developed respect for one another. Speaking of Rose in a 1990s interview, Hunter said, “Pete Rose was the kind of player you hated to play against but would have loved to have had on your team.”

  The passions and personalities on vivid display in ’72 were not confined to baseball. There were Nixon and Mao in China; Brando and Pacino in The Godfather; American Bandstand and Soul Train.

  It was a time of Woody versus Bo; Nicklaus versus Trevino; Fischer versus Spassky. There was John Wooden and the Walton Gang; Franco Harris and the Immaculate Reception; Team Canada, the Soviets, and the Summit Series; Wilt, West, and the Lakers; Mark Spitz at the Summer Olympics.

  Jane Fonda was exalted in Hanoi, and Governor George Wallace was gunned down in Maryland. George McGovern was at the Democratic National Convention and the Gainesville Eight at the Republican National Convention. There was Black September and “Bloody Sunday.”

  Hurricane Agnes hammered the United States, Nixon landed back in the White House, and Apollo 17 landed on the moon.

  “There were a lot of things going on,” remembers Dave Cash, a young and socially aware second baseman for the defending World Series champion Pittsburgh Pirates in 1972. “Civil Rights, people coming back from Vietnam after fighting for their country and facing discrimination. It was a trying time for minorities. I grew up in upstate New York and wasn’t used to racial discrimination. We rallied around each other just like we did on our baseball team.”

  Life in the early ’70s was a ball of confusion. The Temptations had it right when they sang, “Round ’n’ round ’n’ round we go, where the world’s headed nobody knows.” Art imitated society so that just as in the 1972 blockbuster disaster film The Poseidon Adventure, up was down and down was up.

  The times they were a-changin’, as Bob Dylan said. Yankees left-handers Mike Kekich and Fritz Peterson not only swapped wives, but they traded their families and pets as well. America no longer spent Sunday evenings with Ed Sullivan; Life magazine would publish its final weekly issue on December 29, 1972. It seemed as if America’s cultural icons were crashing down all around us. Even John Wayne took a fall. In the January 1972 release of Wayne’s film The Cowboys, the man whom Elizabeth Taylor once said “gave the whole world the image of what an American should be” was shot in the back and killed on screen by a rogue outlaw played by Bruce Dern. “America will hate you for this,” Wayne warned Dern. The young actor’s response was a sign of the times: “Yeah, but they’ll love me in Berkeley.”

  Boyhood memories of this era bring back a time of baseball cards, blue jeans, and comic books. It was summer days playing stickball in the deserted A&P parking lot in Kearny and sitting on the porch foraging through Topps cards and the stale but sugary bubble gum stick that came in every pack. It was summer nights under the street lights playing boxball—a form of stickball played with the same pink Spalding high-bounce ball but without the broom handle for a bat; you used your fist instead. Nearly every yard had a PIC Mosquito Repellant Coil, a spiral-shaped coil that burned from the outer end toward the center and produced an incense to ward off mosquitos. It’s a world gone away, as Chicago later sang, but memories make it seem like yesterday.

  A gallon of gas was fifty-five cents, and the average cost of a new home, $27,550. Afros and sideburns were in style, as were polyester jackets and bell-bottom jeans. The annual Sears Wish Book was both a holiday tradition and mirror of its times. Highly anticipated each fall, the six-hundred-plus page catalog of Christmas toys and gifts arrived in the mail just after the World Series and just before Halloween.

  Sears once described its Christmas catalog as a time capsule, “recording for future historians today’s desires, habits, customs, and mode of living.” The same can be said for the ’72 major league season. The tumultuous and unforgettable campaign marked a historical intersection between the game’s past and future. It was Alpha and Omega, the beginning of one era and the ending of another.

  Irrevocable alterations were under way. The American League would introduce the designated hitter in 1973, making life both easier and at the same time more difficult for AL hurlers. Hunter opined that t
he DH took 3–5 years off his career.

  St. Louis Cardinals star outfielder Curt Flood had challenged baseball’s reserve clause in 1969 and helped open the Flood-gates to free agency. In April the first players’ strike in major league history occurred on, of all days, April Fool’s Day, and wiped out the first 6–9 games of the regular season. The only strike called on the scheduled Opening Day of April 6 came from the players, not the umpires. Major North American sports were suffering their first labor pains, and for fans of the national pastime, Day One of the strike was, to borrow from Don McLean’s hit song of that era, the day their music died.

  The strike set a destructive precedent for further stoppages and lockouts, not only in Major League Baseball, but also in the NFL, NBA, and NHL. Between 1972 and 1994 there were seven work stoppages in MLB, ultimately culminating in the 1994 strike that canceled the World Series.

  Until the spring of ’72, the owners had wielded the power. “We operated under the Golden Rule,” Buzzie Bavasi, one of the game’s great front-office executives, said. “Whoever has the gold, rules.”

  The ’72 strike led to an uneven number of games that season. Some teams played 156 games, others 153. Rather than play an entire 162 games and thus push the World Series deeper into October, the owners opted not to play makeup games. The unbalanced schedule proved disastrous for the Boston Red Sox, who played one less game than the Detroit Tigers and finished one half game behind them in the Eastern Division.

  Baseball’s past and future collided in ’72. The old brick ballparks in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh, whose designs would ironically become the rage for the retro fields of the future, were replaced by multi-colored, multi-purpose steel-and-concrete stadiums. They were hailed by sportscasters as pleasure palaces but were utterly devoid of the personality of their predecessors. The city skylines and quirky features that marked Crosley Field, Shibe Park, and Forbes Field were replaced by superstructures that blotted out their surroundings and brought a sanitized feel to the game.