This is a sponsored post, and the idea is that I'm supposed to write about "Top Grooming Moments In Team History." Facial hair and stuff like that. Except I'm at a disadvantage compared to, say, the good folks at Purple Row, who get to write about this bad boy. I can't think of any unusual or noteworthy examples of facial hair on the current Giants. Nope. Not a one. Been racking my brain, and now I give up.
So I need to dig through the archives for this one. And, boy, did people love their grooming moments in the '70s and '80s! Mustaches ahoy! Here, then, are my favorite facial-related baseball cards from my youth. I remember all of these growing up, though most of them became amazing only with the benefit of hindsight.
5. Joe Morgan
You thought this was going to be a post where we all laughed at hilarious, out-of-date pictures of people with silly mustaches. And, yes, we'll get to that.
But I chose this one because I remember it from when I was a kid. And because it's worth a reminder every so often that Joe Morgan was a badass. No, he's not super-keen with the statistics you like, and no, he wasn't my favorite announcer either, but he was a badass baseball player. I remember studying this card, concentrating on the concentration in some sort of weird, five-year-old feedback loop.
The kids these days know Fire Joe Morgan. But I like remembering Joe Morgan, badass. And because he had a mustache, I can squeeze that sentiment into this post.
4. Greg Minton
Now we get to laugh at mustaches! My favorite part about this is that Greg Minton is painted. The rest of the 1978 Topps set didn't have painted players. But for some reason, here's ol' Moon Man, and he was given the oil-painting treatment. Okay.
This allows us to assume that there is an original oil painting still out there, and that right now, there's a man smoking a pipe and reading a book under the painting. This vision warms me more than I can express in words. I would also like to buy this painting. My wife will understand, I'm sure.
The weird painting of the card also allows me to sneak this one in here. It's a B+ mustache, but an A+ job of airbrushing.
When I say it's an A+ job of airbrushing, that's because airbrushing is the art of painting something with a spray can held between your buttcheeks, right? I suppose I should check Wikipedia. And … huh. That's not what the Wikipedia article on airbrushing suggests at all.
Well, it does now.
3. John Curtis
If I were an actor, and I were up for a role in which I would play a really confused man, I would grow an awesome mustache. And when they asked why I think mustaches make people look confused, I'd pull a John Curtis card out of my wallet.
And when they started to wonder why I carried a John Curtis card in my wallet, they would look as confused as a person with a mustache. And we'll have come full circle.
2. Jack Clark
Sweet facial hair doesn't have to be a beard or a mustache. Look at those eyebrows. Impossibly melded together in some sort of deviant sexual eyebrow congress, beginning and ending at the same point, like an M.C. Escher print.
Other Jack Clark cards didn't feature quite the same unibrow, so it's possible that the shadows are playing tricks on us. But I'd like to think he meticulously groomed them, and the day he forgot just happened to be baseball-card picture day.
1. Joe Pettini
I've never been able to fathom the Heaven's Gate or Jonestown cults. What would make a person give up their life and follow another human without any measure of scrutiny? Such a fascinating subject, and one that I can't answer.
…until I remember this Joe Pettini card. Come on, you're telling me you wouldn't follow that man anywhere? You can't see from the head shot, but that picture was taken in Tenochtitlan, atop a golden temple, during the zenith of the Aztec empire. Don't ask how. It just was. And when Pettini would have asked you to come and join him, you would have. Because look at him. Confidence isn't even the right word. He knows everything. And you know that. And you want to devote your life to him, even if that means you can learn just a tenth of what he knows.
I'll shave my head and just wait for Joe Pettini's call, if that's alright with you.