College Baseball in the 1970s

     Alan Watts, a great philosopher of the 1970s once said “the only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” That is exactly what the free spirited individuals of the 70s did. The early 70s signified a shift of change on economic and social fronts. The early 70s were embodied by progressive individuals that wanted to see the world become more environmentally efficient, domestically fair, and peacefully coexistent. Arguments over equality and the lack there of were prevalent in the sports world, and a time of social change had come. Along with this time of change came a group of people called "hippies", who sought to push the change while also maintaining an open mind. These hippies were a relaxed kind of people who wore funkadelic clothing and had wild hairstyles.

     The 70’s hippie persona was embodied by many of the players on their team, as Daffin stated in his interview that many of the players donned long hair, sometimes riddled with beads and accompanied by handlebar mustaches that would make even legendary Oakland A’s pitcher and mustache extraordinaire Rollie Fingers proud. Although there is not much scholarly evidence about the relationship between drugs and baseball, many are aware that the 70s was a wild era in which recreational drug use was prevalent. Many also remember the day that that Dock Ellis threw a no-hitter on LSD, bringing the use of drugs during competition to light. Bill Daffin recalled that marijuana was very popular among students all across campus, but that can be expected of rebellious college students in the early 70s.

     Author Dan Epstein, who wrote the book “Big Hair and Plastic Grass: A Funky Ride through Baseball and America in the Swinging '70s” described the counter-culturist attitude of baseball players in the 70s when he said "the rebellious, anti-authoritarian spirit that had been so palpable on college campuses since the late 1960s seemed to have finally infected the sport.” From Epstein’s research, it’s apparent that regular students and athletes alike embraced the hippie attitude (Martin). “If the integration of baseball in the 1940s and '50s sparked changes in American culture, then the '70s was the decade where the changes in American culture turned back around and impacted baseball. Even during the turbulent 1960s, baseball players looked, spoke, and played as conservatively as their counterparts in decades past." The 1970s ushered in a new era of baseball attitudes, as players started to express themselves for who they truly were, and in a sense, “flew their freak flag.”