What You Know About Monday Mustache Madness?

Going forward, today shall be known to all "That is that" readers as "Monday Mustache Madness!" Every Monday will feature a new collection of mustached characters. I encourage you to leave a comment or send me a note with your personal request for new mustached features for the upcoming weeks. This week will focus on Major League Baseball players, as requested by DonBranDon.

In the early 1970s, Major League Baseball players seldom, if ever, wore facial hair. The practice had been widespread in the 19th Century, but by the early 20th Century it was rare for a player to sport a mustache or beard. As detailed in the book Mustache Gang, Oakland A's eccentric owner Charlie Finley decided to hold a mustache-growing contest within his team. Many of the players grew them, and Rollie Fingers' distinctive style is probably the best-remembered. When the A's faced the Cincinnati Reds whose team rules forbade facial hair, in the 1972 World Series, facial hair was still sufficiently unusual in baseball that the Series was dubbed by media as "The hairs vs. the squares". Thanks in part to the on-field success of the A's in the early 1970s, along with changing fashions, facial hair has again become very common among baseball players in the intervening years.