For just a moment, let’s look past Bobby Jenks’ weird T-Rex arm situation, and the fact that he appears to have eaten all of Bartolo Colon and most of CC Sabathia. Let’s focus instead on the fact that Jenks seems to have affixed the head of a Treasure Troll to his chin as some sort of quirky facial fashion statement. I’m not sure there’s any way to interpret that decision as anything other than a cry for help. Jenks’ goatee is indicative of an alarming, longtime epidemic in Major League Baseball: awful facial hair. (Also, probably HGH use.)
Baseball players are arguably the most attractive men in professional sports, what with their homespun charm and rugged, corn-fed good looks. So why tarnish your handsome faces with absurd goatees, asinine beards, and disgusting, misplaced whips of whisker, fellas? This is the game of Jeter, of Ethier, of Ryan Braun and Cole Hamels (who is possibly also Tim Riggins?). This is a game or granite jawlines and piercing eyes, and here you are, Bobby Jenks and Kevin Youkilis and Jason Giambi, fucking things up for everyone. Who could love you? Your fans want to love you. Your fathers want to love you. But with your unsightly tufts of scraggle and scruff, you are unlovable! Why do you do this to yourselves and, more importantly, why do you do this to us? All your fans want is to watch a game without being reminded of that brief period in high school when their buddy or boyfriend decided to assert his post-adolescent prowess by growing “a pretty cool goatee.” Like most baseball fans, I watch the game to be reminded of the possibility of Great Things; of triumph. I certainly don’t show up to a ballpark with the desire to see some sweaty Chad Kroeger lookalike skeev everyone out with his disgusting patch of coarse, greasy, misshapen chinhair.
For too long, society has allowed professional athletes to get away with (in some cases, actual) murder. The buck stops here. We’ll tolerate your foibles (Animal cruelty! Misogyny! Violence! Tax evasion! Drug abuse!), but you’ve got to give us something in return. All we ask is that you buy a fucking razor and use it.
