The 2014 Major League Baseball playoffs are set to begin on Tuesday, which means things are going to start to get, well, a little hairy around the baseball diamond.
According to a new light-hearted study from STATS and men’s grooming leader Wahl, http://goo.gl/xT7fSi the more facial hair a team has, the better their odds in securing a World Series ring.
“Facial hair is all about confidence, and we proved it on the baseball diamond last year with research confirming All-Star players with scruff outperform their clean-shaven counterparts,” said Steven Yde, director of marketing for Wahl. “Now, we’re proving the power of facial hair at the team level—and on the game’s biggest stage.”
Come to think of it, if a beard was good enough for Confucius, Sigmund Freud, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglas, and even Jesus of Nazareth and Uncle Sam, isn't a little facial fuzz acceptable with the motley crew of leathery gladiators of America's national pastime?
Abe Lincoln, the Illinois rail-splitter, was in fact the first U.S. president to grow a beard. Four U.S. presidents followed him: Ulysses Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, and Benjamin Harrison.
Around the turn of the 20th Century, the Gillette Company began encouraging daily shaving with its influential 1910 ads that argued women preferred clean shaven faces. Following the popularity of the Beat Generation and the rise of the hippies in the 1970's, a bearded renaissance took root.
In Major League Baseball, Charlie Finley's Oakland A's, of course, broke the facial line in 1972, beginning with slugger Reggie Jackson, who showed up to training camp sporting a scruffy beard. Finley then offered money to any player who would grow facial hair just to prove to Jackson that he's wasn't as unique as he thought. As it turned out, the A’s owner liked what he saw, so did the rest of the team, who took to facial hair like bees to honey and before you knew it, the A's ignited a league-wide fashion trend.
The Yankees all-star catcher Thurman Munson even grew a mustache in 1972, and then extended it to a beard in 1976 despite team owner George Steinbrenner's stern objections. Yankee skipper Billy Martin finally convinced his prized receiver to shave the beard.
Even when the Yankees plucked Johnny Damon away from the Boston Red Sox in December, 2005, signing him to a four-year $52 million dollar contract, the scrappy center-fielder and lead-off hitter was required to depart with his caveman look of long brown hair and a scruffy beard.
The Red Sox and St. Louis Cardinals then sparked an unprecedented bearded transformation during the 2013 World Series. Jonny Gomes kicked off the revolution, showing up to spring training, sporting a beard; other players followed suit, including first baseman Mike Napoli, catcher David Ross, second baseman Dustin Pedroia, designated hitter David Ortiz; outfielders Mike Carp and Shane Victorino; pitchers Brandon Workman, Ryan Dempster, John Lackey, and Clay Buchholz; and catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia.
Not to be outdone, when the Cardinals clinched the NL Central in September, 2013, nearly the whole team grew some form of facial hair; so that by the time the Red Sox and Redbirds clashed in October, the 2013 World Series went down as one of the ``most hirsute of all time’’, as USA Today described it.
Research overwhelming shows, a team’s post-season fortunes are greatly enhanced the more prominent the facial hair.
A summary of STATS investigation is mighty convincing.
• The team with the higher percentage of players with facial hair has won the Series over the last four years. 2010 San Francisco (75 percent), 2012 St Louis (92 percent), 2013 San Francisco (73 percent), and 2014 Boston (92 percent).
• The more facial hair the better. Over the past decade, the team that won The Series averaged 73 percent facial hair, compared with 67 percent for those that lost.
• The last three MVPs, David Frease (2012), Pablo Sandoval (2013) and David Ortiz (2014) had facial hair, combining to hit .491 with 7 HRs and 17 RBIs over 17 games.
• In the 17 games covering the last three Fall Classics, all but one game was decided by bushy pitchers.
• Since 2010, there have been 11 saves recorded in the Fall Classic, nine of those closers featured facial hair.
• Since 2009, five players have belted three or more home runs over the course of play in the Fall Classic. Four out of these five sluggers featured prominent facial peach fuzz: Pablo Sandoval, San Francisco, 2012, Albert Pujols, St Louis, 2011, Allen Craig, 2011, Chase Hutley, Philadelphia, 2009.
• 60 percent of Series MVPs since 2004 had facial hair.
Who has the edge going into the post-season?
According to STATS Facial Hair Power Rankings for the 2014 Post-season:
1.) Washington: 95 percent facial hair
2.) Oakland: 85 percent facial hair
3.) St Louis: 83 percent facial hair
4.) Los Angeles Angels: 82 percent facial hair
5.) San Francisco: 80 percent facial hair
6.) Detroit: 75 percent facial hair
7.) Pittsburgh: 75 percent facial hair
8.) Kansas City: 74 percent
9.) Los Angeles Dodgers: 70 percent
10.) Baltimore: 48 percent.
-Bill Lucey
September 29, 2014
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