Big Time: How the 1970s Changed American Sports; Written by Michael McCambridge
Organizing American history by decades is foolish, arbitrary, and increasingly outdated. But there’s also something oddly satisfying about it, like organizing your junk drawer.
The 1970s, now entering or approaching the tense and reflective 50s, were especially full of junk: war, stagflation, and pet rocks. Writers including David Frum and Bruce J. Schulman are trying to grapple with this whole shebang. In his new book, The Big Time, Michael McCambridge carefully and often enlighteningly discusses the sport, which in its polyester days grew from the big time we know it today. He claims to have become a money-making tycoon.
Nevertheless, the book is expansive, with overlapping coverage of tennis, football, baseball, basketball, boxing, golf, hockey, and lesser-known sports introduced at the Olympics. Television producer Rune Arlidge prophesied about the decathlete then known as Bruce Jenner in Montreal in 1976: “He can really break out of this heat.” I think he could be another Dorothy Hamill. ”
“The Big Time” reflects that personality, evoking a longing for a time when sporting events were less scripted, scrutinized and orchestrated. The men were all peacocks and buzzing with ego. Joe Namath and his mink coat. John Fuqua and his goldfish swimming in his translucent heels. Jack Nicklaus and his weight loss. Jimmy Connors and his crotch grab. Reggie Jackson and his candy bar. (“Reggie! When you open the packaging on a bar, you’ll tell me how delicious it is,” the Catfish Hunter pitcher joked.)
The rampant racism and sexism of this era is hardly news, but McCambridge’s well-cut highlight reel is nonetheless compelling. The media, including this one, were slow to accept that Muhammad Ali had given up his “slave name” of Cassius Clay. Atlanta Braves star Hank Aaron received a ton of hate mail as he closed in on Babe Ruth’s record of 714 home runs. Black athletes had a hard time gaining support — “I’ve never done a dog food commercial,” wide receiver Otis Taylor said in 1971. dog food. “
The difference in funding between the University of Texas at Austin’s men’s and women’s teams was simply staggering when University of Texas at Austin stalwart Title IX defender Donna Lopiano took over as director of women’s athletics at the University of Texas. ($2.4 million and $128,000, respectively). Roberta Gibb was told by Boston Marathon organizers that “women are physiologically incapable of running 42.2 miles.”
Many of these anecdotes make you want to bang your head against a wall like a character in a Charles Schulz cartoon (“Ah!”). Recall that the cartoonist himself championed equality in sports, featured female characters in baseball stadiums, specifically Peppermint Patty, and used Snoopy in strips to call attention to the vile prejudice Aaron faced. What a joy to be able to do this, and what a time in the 70’s.
In 1973, Ms. Schultz watched Billie Jean King defeat Bobby Riggs, a former Wimbledon champion and “proud troglodyte of gender issues,” in a glamorous but consequential battle of the sexes match. He was one of the 45 million Americans who saw it. (The 2017 film version failed to capture the excitement of the original, cast as “Libber vs. the Lobber” in a nifty copy of yesteryear.)
This is one of the most famous turning points that McCambridge revisits, building the case for sports’ beginnings as mass entertainment and big business. The halftime slam dunk contest won by Julius Erving in the mid-2010s is another, though few people saw it. The rise of color television became decisive only in his 1972, when uniform costumes were created. Dallas Cowboys cheerleaders entered the era of white spandex hot pants, and the team they cheered became “a ‘brand’ as national as McDonald’s or Coca-Cola.”
McCambridge, a veteran reporter who has written encyclopedic books and a history of Sports Illustrated magazine, wants to remind readers of the importance of print journalism — where he once saw results the next day. That I had to wait until the newspaper. He warmly cites ephemeral technologies such as portable cassette recorders that play the national anthem stridently and sports phone services, which he writes are “a kind of lifeline for the obsessive.” But of course, so are gamblers. Sometimes — Bud Collins! Dick Button! Frank Gifford! — This book is like a family reunion of hilarious TV dudes.
McCambridge’s prose is sometimes, perhaps inevitably, confused with statistics and abbreviations, although there was a joke during the era of litigation that the NBA meant nothing more than lawyers. He knows how to express himself gracefully. I wrote down some of them: “Fourth glass of recklessness.” “A greasy recruiter” “A friendly, Midwestern beige voice” (to describe someone) but (Howard Cosell) “The Corona of Hairy Flamboyance.” Everything this time summons as quickly as a Ron Burgundy sports jacket.
“The Big Time” is probably not for the obsessives who already know much of what McCambridge describes, but instead is a memorabilia set to the “Wide World of Sports” theme music. It is for the curious public who wants to speed skate down the path. Chips inevitably occur in the ice. Criminally speaking, there is no backstory about the Slovenian Vinko Bokotaj, the “Agony of Defeat” ski jumper. If so, thank you YouTube.
Big Time: How the 1970s Changed American Sports | Michael McCambridge | Grand Central | 497 pages | $32.50
