Hairs Vs. Squares: The Mustache Gang, the Big Red Machine, and the Tumultuous Summer of '72

Changes on and off the baseball field

Hairs vs. Squares is an ode to an unforgettable season that began with the first major players’ strike in the history of North American sportsand ended with a record-setting World Series played by two of thegame’s greatest and most colorful dynasties. In a sign of the times itwas Hippies vs. Hardhats, a clash of cultures with the hirsute, modMustache Gang colliding with the clean-cut, conservative Big RedMachine on the game’s grandest stage.
When the Oakland A’s met the Cincinnati Reds in the 1972 FallClassic, more than a championship was at stake. More than two dozeninterviews bring to life a time when controversy was commonplace,both inside and outside the national pastime. In baseball, Willie Mayswas traded, Hank Aaron was chasing down Babe Ruth’s home runrecord, and Dick Allen was helping save the Chicago White Sox franchisewhile winning the American League’s Most Valuable Playeraward. Outside the American pastime the war in Vietnam was raging,campus protests spread throughout the country, and Watergate andthe Munich Olympics headlined the tumultuous year.
Along with the many unforgettable and outrageous characters inside baseball, Hairs vs. Squares emphasizes the dramatic changes that took place on and off the field in the 1970s. Owners’ lockouts, on-field fights, maverick managers, controversial trades, artificial fields, the first full five-game League Championship Series and the closest, most competitive World Series ever combined to make the 1972 season as complex as the social and political unrest that marked the era.