Hey, patrons of baseball by the book, and welcome to another bonus episode. We previously had an episode on baseball movies of the 80s, as you guys know. So I thought it would be fun to follow that up with an episode about baseball movies of the 70s. So to do that, we have a great panel for you today and we'll get right to it. I'm going to introduce the panel. First of all, we are joined by Dan Epstein. He is the author of Big Hair and Plastic Grass, a funky ride through baseball in America in the Swinging Seventies. He's also the author of Stars and Strikes, Baseball in America in the Bicentennial Summer of 76. He, of course, has been on the podcast

to talk about both those books. And he has a book coming up very soon called The Captain and

Me on and off the field with Thurman Munson that he co-wrote with, is it Ron Blomberg or Bloomberg?

It's actually Bloomberg. That's what I thought. I always thought it was Bloomberg and then somebody told me it was Bloomberg.

But anyway, anyone listening to this, I'm sure knows.

Ron Bloomberg was the first DH ever.

So Dan has co-authored a book with him that's coming out soon and he'll be on the podcast to discuss that.

I'm really looking forward to that.

We're also joined by Josh Wilker. He is the author of Cardboard

Gods, an All-American Tale, told through baseball cards. And he is also the author of a book

on The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training, which of course is very relevant to our discussion today.

Josh has been on the podcast to talk about both those books. And finally, we are joined by

Willie Steele. Willie is a professor of

English at Lipscomb University, and he's the author of Going the Distance, the Life and Works of W.P.

Kinsella. And you guys probably know he has been on previous bonus episodes covering baseball

movies of the 80s, as well as baseball novels. And I thought it would be fun to have Willie on

today to talk a little bit about a couple of these books which were as baseball novels. And I thought it would be fun to have Willie on today to talk a little

bit about a couple of these books which were based on novels. So let's get right to it. As we sit here

and talk about baseball movies of the 70, something really occurred to me. I mentioned that we

had done an episode on baseball movies of the 80s. So over the last couple of months, I've been

rewatching baseball movies from both thoses. So over the last couple of months, I've been re-watching

baseball movies from both those decades. So I've seen a lot of them. And the one thing that

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