In 1976, America’s pastime mirrored the celebration—and craziness—of the nation’s mood
Stars and Strikes
By Dan Epstein
Hardcover, 400 pages, $28.99 / Kindle edition$12.74 (Thomas Dunne Books)
The author, who previously chronicled ’70s baseball in Big Hair and Plastic Grass, focuses here on one particularly distinctive year during that decade, looking at America’s pastime through a prism of current events and popular culture as the nation celebrated its 2000 birthday and the 1976 season unfolded in a colorful, often zany setting—changing fashions and hairdos on and off the field, disco-pop music, TV shows and movies, and news headlines about Patty Heart’s kidnapping, Legionnaires Disease and an election campaign that would lead to end of the Watergate era and a new president from the South. As the author says, it’s a tale “rich with electrifying moments, oddball events and unforgettable characters—all set against the star-spangled backdrop of the Bicentennial.”
—Neil Pond, American Profile Magazine
The Media Tourist 