Josh Byrnes: You Sir, Are No Steve Kerr

Today, the Arizona Diamondbacks re-signed 22-year-old outfielder Justin Upton to a 6-year, 51 million dollar deal. Cue thrilling montage pop song over footage of J-Up launching liners into the lackluster lunches of Friday's Front Row patrons.

Say it ain't so, Pete.

Peter Pascarelli - my favorite baseball analyst - was removed from ESPN.com's Baseball Today podcast recently for sarcastic comments he made about the commissioner of baseball.

Even after Peter went on-air a few days after the comments to graciously apologize, ESPN not only removed him from the show, but has, as of today, given no explanation or made mention of the debacle. Today, the newest episode aired without a trace of Pascarelli's presence; even the host and producer pretended he'd never existed - all at the behest of some faceless higher-ups (MLB + ESPN), no doubt.

Here is an old-school baseball man that loves the game more than anyone I can think of. He lives and breathes the sport - this is apparent by listening to five minutes of him talk to his old pals Jim Leyland, or Bobby Cox, or any of the other old-time baseball men that don't give the type of interviews Peter gets to anyone but Peter (except maybe Gammons). I didn't always agree with him - Barry Larkin is easily a Hall of Famer - but he brought an endearing, human quality to his work that drew me in. I don't know how else to describe him, but this is the internet. If you're interested, have a fun Google search, and I'll see you back here in a few minutes.

This event, in the face of a cynical, holier-than-thou sports world that has forgiven the deeds of Mark McGwire, Michael Vick, and Marv Albert, directly after defaming and shaming them, will not go undetected.

I don't judge those men - their lives and deeds are their own to figure out, regardless of their fame or fortune. However, if they can make mistakes and continue in their profession in any capacity, then that standard should apply to the media that brings said sports into our lives. A couple of mild-mannered, sarcastic jabs about an authority figure should not cost a man his passion and livelihood. Bud Selig should be able take a joke - he owns the Brewers, and they haven't been relevant in a postseason since Milli Vanilli.

Peter Pascarelli's dismissal has made me seriously (and sadly) reconsider the time and energy I devote to professional sports.

Bored of hearing about steroids and strikes, I tried to give up sports a few years ago. I picked up acting in local community theater - small time, non-paid stuff, but it was fun, time-consuming, and it allowed me to meet my wife (in a Woody Allen play, no less). Acting distracted me from what I couldn't stomach any longer: the greed and excess involved with professional sports.

Too much about sports is glitz, glamour, and hype, sex, pressure, and fame. The primary reason, I believe, is simple: there is too much money in sports. I could expand on that point for days and days, but there is no denying that money lords over every aspect of the sporting world. Labor disputes, contract squabbles, college athletes that can't pay bills but make millions for schools that are already brimming with cash-heavy boosters, secret houses owned by married men for the purpose of anonymous group sex - these are some of the side effects of pouring way too much scrilla into what should be a respectable, lucrative livelihood, not one that dictates a person like me will get to see 3 games next year, all on someone else's dime, because I can't afford a $25 nosebleed.

I mean, sure, I could go watch Little League and stop bothering with Major League Baseball, but I'm addicted. It's like Lay's potato chips. You can give me other chips, and I'll declare my satisfaction, polish off the bag, and pat my stomach. Deep inside my heart, though, I always wish it could have been Lay's. I have to be honest - I'm not really sure why I feel this way. Maybe it's the skill level, maybe it's the ease with which I can turn on a TV or radio and have my fix 24 hours a day.

I do wish I could find the satisfaction I get out of watching a baseball game doing something else, but I haven't found that thing. I've looked. Believe me. The closest thing I've found is NBA or NFL games. Delightful.

Baseball was the first sport I ever cared about. I started watching intently after my father took me to a Cubs spring training game when I was 11. I still carry the ticket stub around in my wallet. I used to lay awake at night, buried in sheets, a flashlight on, coming up with strange, long lists of all-star teams comprised of hitters and pitchers I'd only read about or watched on old VHS tapes. There was no internet when I was a kid, no satellite TV. I didn't have a concrete, justifiable reason for hoarding stacks of paper peppered with names like Hornsby, DiMaggio, and Mays, so I hid the lists and never spoke to anyone about them. My little brother knew about them, but he didn't pay much attention to my nerd shenanigans back then. We co-manage several fantasy teams, currently.

After that Cubs game, I breathed baseball. I read it, watched it, wished like hell I could play it well. I forsook school work, chores, and friendships, many a time because I had Howard Cosell's autobiography at home to read, and that was more interesting than playing Mike Tyson's Punch Out with my mother's daycare kids.

Baseball became the one constant I desperately needed, since my teenage life was, as teenage lives go, swirling in desolate confusion and self-doubt. I came to enjoy and appreciate ESPN; my unequivocal favorite hour of television was the Dan Patrick-Keith Olbermann anchored Sportscenter episodes.

As I entered my twenties, I scratched out a few feeble lines of successful dialog with the opposite sex, stumbled into a steady girlfriend, and left baseball behind. Subsequently (but not necessarily relative to the woman), drinking became my number one hobby. Going to bars, one would figure I'd end up getting interested in sports again. I didn't. The only thing that interested me was numbing out an existence I am still perpetually inches away from understanding.

After the ebb and flow of day-to-day life - skipping college to work at shitty restaurant jobs and drink - really began to beat me down, who was there for me? Baseball. It was like all those rookie cards sheathed in plastic I'd kept under my pillow as an adolescent were still there, reassuring me that after the carnival of ridiculousness was over, I'd always have something to look forward to.

Fantasy football helped me really re-discover sports on a "yes, I'm wearing a basketball jersey all day today but I won't be playing basketball in it" level. Fantasy sports gave me the opportunity not only to make up imaginary lists of players, but to pit my lists against other people's... well, it worked for me, and it still does. It shuts my brain off, and I need that.

When I quit drinking, thanks to my wife, baseball was still there. Ignoring my disdain for excessive competition and the almighty American drive to make a buck, I re-invested in the game.

Last year was my first playing fantasy baseball, and I really liked it. I'd been wanting to play for years, but I was worried about the 162 game schedule, and how it'd affect my then-super-new marriage. My wife knew I liked sports when we met, but after we married, it's been as if I'm embarking incredibly slowly on a drawn-out mid-life crisis, constantly listening to old hip-hop from the mid-1990s and watching as much baseball as my eyeballs could digest.

During last baseball season, I got a job doing internet sales for a music instrument shop. I basically post stuff on eBay all day and then get messages from people that know 4563349750332 times more information about the products than I do. In doing this, I started listening to several sports podcasts on ESPN.com. I listened to a couple a day at first, but at this point - as of today, I mean - I'd say a good six or seven hours of my workday is filled with these podcasts, and they're great. Much of the time, they're more about games than the dumb drama that literally caused me to abhor another youthful fancy: working in sports as a journalist. I knew that I'd have to cover _________ _______'s rape trial, or extramarital affairs, or other things THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH ACTUAL GAMES, whether I liked it or not.

The problem remains, however: what am I going to do without those podcasts?

Sure, I listen to NPR every once in awhile, but I can only take so much bad news and politicking. There are other options, but presently, my concern is elsewhere.

I'm going to miss Peter Pascarelli, and I'm not sure who to blame. I've written ESPN, and I'm going to axe the Baseball Today podcast from my routine. Aside from that, I'm not sure what else I can do.

There is the possibility that Peter himself simply decided enough was enough, that he couldn't utter even the most innocuous of salty barbs, and he was done dealing anything that didn't have to do with a ball, a bat, and a few warm hours of sunshine. I hope that's the case. He deserves better than this, and so do his fans.

I'm tired of a country and culture where censorship is only illegal if the subject material is palatable to a ten-year-old. I do not want my sports or sports personalities whitewashed for the purpose of preserving good working relationships with super-rich, super-sensitive, PC fools. The United States is GREAT because it allows us to be FREE. WE CAN SAY AND WRITE WHATEVER WE WANT. I don't remember there being an asterisk in the Bill of Rights.

Don Imus has a radio show today. Peter Pascarelli does not.

Fuck the world that allows something like this to happen.

I'm Warning You... Kurt To the Hall, Inevitably!

-- by Brandon Huigens



The last few money-thin years, it's been difficult for me to get out to the stadium in Glendale to see Arizona Cardinals football games. Still, I've been to a few, and I've seen every Cards game on television for the last ten years. You could say I bleed Cardinal red, but it's likely I dig that pun more than you do.

A non-stop baseball fanatic, I started paying attention to the NFL just after '98, when Jake Plummer and the Cardiac Cards administered a beatdown to the hated Cowboys in the first round of the playoffs. About three years later, I began playing fantasy football, and my addiction to sports hit the Knight Rider Turbo Boost button. I've read Moneyball, Bill Simmons' Book of Basketball, The Bill James Baseball Abstract, and I have a big, glossy picture book of Jerry Rice, which I broke out last year during the Cards' magical Super Bowl run to compare photographs of the G.O.A.T. with our own beloved birdcatcher, Larry Fitzgerald.

QUICK NOTE: TERRELL OWENS IS NOT, IN ANY WAY, SHAPE, OR FORM, THE EQUAL OF JERRY RICE, NO MATTER WHO EITHER'S QB WAS. HELL, I'D TAKE STEVE LARGENT, TIM BROWN, OR LYNN SWANN OVER T.O. Having said that, I sometimes dislike his off-the-field antics, but I like that he has created so much FUN over the years, inappropriate or not. He did do that. Plus he brought us a digital avalanche of Ed Werner Sportscenter Breaking News bits. I'm moderately indifferent about the Werder thing.

Anyway, there: I've made my case for having the acumen and knowledge to make the following statement: Kurt Warner is a Hall of Famer, no question.

For those arguing my apparent homerism: I thought when the Cardinals signed Kurt Warner, it was a total joke; a meager, inconsequential roster move for a post-gleaming-flash-in-the-pan, and that USC bad ass Matt Leinart was easily the present AND future of the Redbirds.

A few years ago, I had a conversation with the biggest Cards fan I know, Mike Banks, about Warner seeming almost smug in his confidence during the last battle between him and Lawn Dart for the top spot. We both felt that between Warner's dismal stint with the Giants, where often times, he looked as if he had gone to a pistol duel with a squirt gun, and the way he wasn't able to stay healthy for the middle part of the Aughts, he wasn't going to offer much behind some decent tutelege for Leinart.

The man with the fastest under-pressue football release I've ever seen simply looked as if he'd taken too many hits over the course of his celebrated, storybook career, and I was more excited about Edgerrin James getting a 300-sack of carries. In just a handful of years, however, Kurt Warner would become the heart and soul of a football team with a fan base terribly accustomed to 6-10 seasons being bookended with poor draft picks (Andre Wadsworth, Wendall Bryant, Alan Branch) and managements' inability to keep scads of competent players (Garrison Hearst, Simeon Rice, Thomas Jones, Calvin Pace) in AZ.

By now, everyone knows Warner's story - most passing yards in a playoff campaign (1156 in '08), fastest to throw for 10,000 yards, fastest to throw for 30,000, 2 MVPs, 5 Pro Bowls, a ring, and one Pippen/Jordan super-bond with Fitz. Warner also holds the record for number of times thanking God/Jesus for something religion has nothing to do with, but he seems like a genuine person with uncanny compassion. When Anquan Boldin's face was smashed vs. the Jets in '08, KW talked about retirement. I'm not sure I've ever heard another athlete publicly admit their athletic mortality being exclusively tied into a teammate's well-being. It's a hell of a thing, for a man to not only be an incredible athlete, but a truly compassionate person. Talking about what's right is easy, but following through? It happens less than anyone will ever explain to you.

KW meant a world to a sports community that hadn't seen this type of transcendental superstar since Charles Barkley's short-but-wonderful run with the Suns, and one that was starved for not only winning football, but a smart, competitive team that brought heart each week. This isn't a scene where everyone embraces local teams no matter what, like Green Bay or Pittsburgh. In the wild card game this year, when the Cards trotted out Frank Sanders - a stalwart Cards wide receiver during the sh**storm early 1990s - the applause was non-existent. In Arizona, where winning is all that matters, Warner was seemingly able to will his team to victory - an intangible shared by few, and almost exclusively shared with players who are already enshrined in the Hall.

Warner didn't fix everything, as the only defense worse than that of the Mike D'Antoni 7-Seconds-Or-Less Suns teams eventually proved our downfall in his last two seasons - more so in the recent NFC Championship game loss to the Saints. At least in '08, the D turned it way, way up when the playoffs got under way. In St. Louis, injuries and a young, super-charged Marc Bulger did him in; the Giants basically made him a casualty of their monumental trade for Eli Manning, which ended up totally working, if only for the one unbelievable Super Bowl game (good job, Giants).

Assuming the argument against Warner is based on his performance through 2001 through 2007, when injuries, and returning from injuries too soon, wiped out a fat chunk of six seasons. Warner's NFL career started at the late age of 28 after stints in the CFL and as a grocery stocker, leaving him with, what, 6 or 7 full seasons of decent football, after having NOT been drafted? Remember, Warner started off winning a championship in his first NFL season, and make no mistake - that team wasn't going to win a chip with Trent Green installed as QB1. During the '01 to '07 span, he only won 13 games against 29 losses, but again - injuries, injuries, injuries. When he was healthy, Kurt was cash money, up there with the best of 'em.

For comparison's sake, take Pittsburgh's favorite son, Terry Bradshaw, one of the top 10 all-time great NFL signal callers. Drafted number one in 1970, it took Bradshaw - who would win 4 rings, 2 Super Bowl MVPs, and 1978 regular season MVP - four seasons to finally get a hold on the position. When he did ('74), the Steelers won 8 AFC Central championships. Taking into consideration that Bradshaw played 14 seasons, that leaves him with 10 full seasons - easily enough to warrant a Hall of Fame career. Broadway Joe Namath played 12 seasons, and has similar accolades (1 ring, 5 All Star/Pro Bowls, 2 MVP awards, 3 Super Bowl appearances), but his overall career stats pale in comparison to Warner's:

Kurt: TD - INT 208 - 128, Yards 32,344, 9-4 Playoff Record

Joe: TD - INT 173-220, Yards 27,663, 2-1 Playoff Record

Looking at those lines, it's easy to concede Warner is an all-timer, isn't it? It almost makes me feel like an idiot for thinking the guy was washed up just a few years after being the architect of The Greatest Show On Turf. It should make whomever is arguing this point eat their words like Joey Chestnut going down on a tank of alphabet hot dog soup.

While the past five years have netted both phenomenal results for the Cardinals via the draft, and solid decisions on re-signing franchise cornerstones like Adrian Wilson and Darnell Dockett, the best move of the bunch was signing Warner, and I'll tell you: it's satisfying as hell to have been wrong.

Thanks for the memories, Kurt - especially your last home game - you flashed some Ted Williams-meets-Joe-Montana balls in The Roaster in the Toaster. We know it'll be a long time before we make it back to the big one.



I hope in the years to come, you let everyone know that you liked throwing to Fitz, Q, and Breaston way more than Isaac Bruce, Torry Holt, and Az Hakim.

Now, folks: let's strap in for a season of Matt Leinart, which I (shakily) think is not the worst of scenarios. Considering the awkward career trajectories of Vince Young and Jay Cutler, fellow QB draftees of the still-young Leinart, there's plenty of time for the guy to develop while throwing to some dangerous weapons. Here's hoping we don't draft Tebow, sign Julius Peppers, re-sign Karlos Dansby (or drop him and get Shawne Merriman), trade Anquan Boldin for a sweet, sweet defensive end, and we watch Early Doucet break the $%&@ out.

And old Lawn Dart's arm is strong enough to get it to Fitz when he breaks free 16 yards down field.

If I ruled baseball, part 1

The All Star Game. We pay tribute to the history of a game that reflects the history of a country. Home runs rain down like a meteor shower. Old timers chew the fat and run the drills with kids. Stories and statistics fly with fervor across the ballpark. There's a smile on every person's face and memories are made that last for many a year to come.

I demand this game be played on the 4th of July. I want red, white and blue everywhere. I want a fireworks show that makes Washington and New York fireworks look like pop guns I want an armada of aircraft in a military flyover. I want a singing of the national anthem sung with such vim and vigor that Mars can hear it. I want a week's celebration that includes: World Baseball Classic finals (an amateur only tourney - stay tuned for more); the Little League World Series; some college baseball tourney (College World Series ideally, but the college calendar doesn't coincide); a women's tourney (softball or baseball, again stay tuned). I want free hotdogs, for EVERYONE, paid for by major league baseball who, incidentally, will be supplementing the cost of tickets and other fan-friendly activities so that it's financially reasonable that anyone can enjoy the myriad of events. Oh yes, Mr. Selig. MLB makes enough money that you can pick up the tab to help everyone celebrate this game we love.

People! It's a no brainer! The greatest single game of the regular season of the greatest sport the world has ever seen MUST be played on the greatest day on the calendar of the greatest country the world has ever seen. Period.

Power pitchers with the big pesos = division winners...

Rafael Soriano to the Rays. Jose Valverde to the Tigers. Josh Johnson secured long term with the Marlins. Matt Capps to the Nationals. John Lackey in Boston. And who did the Angels just get to annex the arm of Fuentes? Commonalities? Big contracts, big expectations and if they follow through, position their teams for a trip to the postseason. Despite the power hitting in the last 20 years, it would appear the power of the peso is furthering the emphasis on pitching as the gateway to greatness? Now, why hasn't Joel Piniero been picked up yet?

Oh, When the Saints are in the Crowd

-- Kevin Vaughn-Brubaker

My first entry for this blog deserves a subject that rises to the elevated occasion of a first entry, the NFC Wild Card game this past Sunday at University of Phoenix Stadium (full disclosure, I teach for UOP Online) between the Arizona Cardinals and the Green Bay Packers. To be honest, I had never been to a Cardinals game at UOP Stadium before. My only attendance at the venue was for a USA vs. Mexico men’s soccer international friendly match. I bought a ticket at the last minute in the last row of the nosebleed section. Surrounded by Mexicans, I wondered if I would escape with my life if Mexico won or lost. On the contrary, the Mexican fans around me were quite jovial and high-fived me as they sang, danced and chanted throughout the game. USA ended up winning that game and those sporting the Tri Colores left the stadium in a peaceful manner. No soccer hooligans in AZ, I guess.

Brandon, a fellow founder of this blog, scored free tickets from his brother last Sunday and we were once again sent high into the top section of the stands for our seats somewhere in the middle rows up from the 30 yard line (sec 416 for those who know). I had heard about the proliferation of Packers fans previously this season where they had smoked the Cardinals and cheeseheads dominated the cheering and jeering. I wondered if these fans in green would be as friendly as those supporting our neighbors to the south. Despite nobody really cheering for Cards great, Frank Sanders (the original wide out to wear 81 for the dirty birds, thank you very much for honoring him, Mr. Boldin) and even less people playing the airdrum solo to Phil Collins’ “In the Air Tonight”, there was a good vibe in our section. No one was really razzing the Green Bay fans in front of us too much. And I know razzing; I’ve worn my Diamondbacks gear proudly to Wrigley Field and to Dodger Stadium. The guy at the ticket window at Wrigley told me I was a brave soul. That’s right, sucka.

Bravery be damned in the Toaster, as I’ve heard UOP stadium called, camaraderie was the word of the day on this most glorious day for the sport of football. Once a team scored, there was barely enough time to scooch out of the row, go down the stairs, pee and get a new beer before the other team was knocking on the doorstep of a touchdown. The emotional level started at jubilation after Rodgers’ first interception and went up from there. All week long, former Cardnials fullback, Ron Wolfley, had hammered home the point that whichever team won the turnover battle would win this game. The Pack were plus 24 turnovers for the season coming into the game, but when the Great Dansby tipped that first pass of the game into DRC’s awaiting hands, I knew the Cardinals were destined to make a game of it.

A game for the ages, it turns out. By halftime, the crowd was sure the Cards had this game in the books, but slowly the tide turned and the Packers fans came back to life. The teams went blow for blow until Neil Rackers, one of the few stud kickers in the game, came on to seal the deal and send the Cardinals to New Orleans. But Rackers missed. This was the only moment of the game where the Packers fans could be heard over the home crowd. Regulation ended, the Packers won the coin toss and you could feel the UOP stadium deflate. The team that wins the coin toss wins the game in overtime, right? Especially in a game where either offense could score at will. However, I did not despair, perhaps the only one of thousands who held onto my complimentary 2009 playoff towel in one hand and held onto hope in the other among the Red Sea at that moment, for I listen to Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio. Colin, mythbuster in his own right, recently crunched the numbers on teams that had gone on to win in overtime after having won the coin toss to prove that it was not automatic. The percentage was not alarming. I think it was near a 50/50 proposition. So I knew there was hope for the Cardinals. What I didn’t know is how unique and remarkable the play would be that would end the game.

The game’s TV ratings were off the chart and through the magic of Sportscenter and the replay of the game on KTAR 620, most of Arizona and the nation knows that the game ended with Michael Adams redeeming his pass interference penalties by sacking Aaron Rodgers, avoiding a facemask and dodging the infamous tuck rule while the ball bounced off Rodgers foot and into the arms of the Great Dansby who scored the first ever fumble recovery for a game winning touchdown in a playoff game. These facts have had time to sink in, but at the moment, even before Karlos crossed into the end zone, the crowd exploded with joy and sound, nearly blowing the useless retractable roof off the Toaster.

Fans, who had been high-fiving every score, leapt to their feet knocking into each other drunk with beer, spirits and joy. It was like the peace-be-with-you part of Mass but everyone really expressing it with every ounce of their being. Men were hugging, women were crying, Pakcers fans shaking their heads, some with smiles of disbelief, not really registering what had happened but knowing they had seen something special and a chance to own it had slipped through the holes in their cheesehead hats.

Everyone was caught up in the ecstatic maelstrom that enveloped University of Phoenix Stadium. People happily waited in their cars as the parking lots unloaded their full bellies as did the fans who had too much to drink. Horns honked at no one in particular and the hair on the back of necks still stood at attention. Memories slowly took shape in our heads on the drive home, memories of Larry Fitzgerald making an amazing catch over his head for a touchdown, memories of Early Doucet, the guy with one touchdown catch in his career who needed to step up in Boldin’s absence, catching a pass, pirouetting around a tackle like a ballerina and then pounding through another defender to score, memories of realizing how fast Kurt Warner makes his decisions and passes the ball on target every time, memories of one of the greatest football games ever played among fans who rose to the occasion, brought the energy and shared the love. The fates were shining on me last Sunday and offered me a chance to witness firsthand a moment of sports history.

The Steadfastness of Dave Winfield's Mustache

-- Brandon Huigens

In the swirling world of sports parity, one is naturally - and quite often obsessively - compelled to embrace what is constant: Cal Ripken, Jr. and Brett Favre's consecutive games streaks; Red Auerbach's customary victory cigar; Tony Dungy's deer-in-headlights NFL TV analysis; Mariano Rivera's unparalleled late-game lockdowns*.

*My name is Brandon, and I'm from Phoenix. I root for all the teams that play here, and as a Suns fan, I will commiserate that I do indeed root for the greatest sports franchise never to win a championship (thanks to the dynamic duo of Tim Donaghy and the San Antonio Sterns). The single sweetest time in sports for me is when the Yankees are in the World Series and the analysts talk about, and replay, the one time Mariano blew it: the 2001 classic - the best World Series ever played. Never could I have imagined that a bloop single from the bat of a man named Luis Gonzalez would etch itself inside my skull, leaving a more indelible mark than even Trapper Keepers (those were pretty huge for me) could. This is truly all I have to gloat about as a fan. Otherwise, it's John Paxson, James Harrison, and lamenting how we could have had AD every time Levi Brown is called for holding.

Unearthing this sort of unflappability is thinning out faster than Manu Ginobli's bald spot. Thanks to 24-7 sports coverage and incessant inundation of gossip, rumors, and sensationalism (let the Jets' rookie eat a damned hot dog in peace!), we're fully aware of every quality, good and bad, of our teams and the dazzling folks that are employed by those teams. Sucks a bit of the mystique out. Free agency, small vs. big market teams, and everything that comes with dollars, dollars, dollars makes it not only harder for players to deal with day-to-day pressures, but easier, as well, for players to simply mail it in after they get paid.

I think maybe some of us as fans have been mailing it in, as well.

That's why it is now time to reveal a simple, yet discerning, examination of what, during my own lifetime, has been an incredible testament to steadfastness: Baseball Hall of Fame slugger Dave Winfield's unchanging mustache.

He was born the day Bobby Thomson hit "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" - and even though David Mark Winfield excelled in three sports, baseball was to be his destiny. Moreover, it was his mustache's destiny to stay perfectly consistent, and he knew baseball provided the safest haven for upper lips (as opposed to football - excessive helmet rubs, and basketball - frequent face-to-elbow contact).



Like the nanoseconds after a young Stephen Hawking was accidentally wheeled into Pre-Algebra, Dave skipped the minor leagues entirely and went straight to the show. While his Hall-of-Fame career was burgeoning with the Padres, he let everyone know he could easily grow three mustaches at a time on his face.

(mustache #3 not shown)

Winfield's storied time as a feared masher with the Yankees was marked by a long string of All-Star appearances, 6 Gold Gloves, 5 Silver Sluggers, and plenty of insane drama with George Steinbrenner. Though he was at one point the highest-paid player in the sport, Dave didn't let it go to his mustache.



Ah, the glorious summer days of Donruss Diamond Kings. It must have been an honor for the painter to add that mustache on there. You know he totally saved it for last.



Dave finally got his ring with the Blue Jays in 1992. Shame he and Don Mattingly's stellar mustaches couldn't celebrate together as champions.




In 1994, our hero was traded to the Indians for dinner. With the player's strike in full swing, Winfield called it a career.



Dave is now doing baseball analysis for ESPN, where you can see his tasteful, understated mustache, still, as it always will be, in it's glorious prime.



Another great constant in sports is music. Call up the theme from The Natural, Charlie Sheen's entrance song, or the "Steamin' Willie Beamen" rap from On Any Given Sunday. It's right there, isn't it?


Remember how you wanted your Dad to stand in the bleachers of your Little League game with a ghetto blaster stretched high over his head, Say Anything-style, blaring Fogerty's "Centerfield" as you trotted gracefully to your position?

My favorite sports-related musical moment is the line from Simon & Garfunkel's "Mrs. Robinson": "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio? Our nation turns it's lonely eyes to you".

Incidentally, here's a photo of DiMag with John Oates' rug added in:



Dave Winfield has had the exact same mustache the entire time I've been alive. Like everything else in life that counts: it takes guts.

And a switchblade comb.