Yesterday we reported on Clay Zavada’s glorious lip-sweater that should serve as an inspiration to a certain clean-shaven third baseman in Queens. Apparently ESPN took notice too, as they interviewed Friend O’ The Stache and Chairman of the American Mustache Institute Dr. Aaron Perlut about Zavada’s stache and the role of the cookie-duster in baseball, past and present. Dr. Perlut throws around some fantastic ’stache lingo (“flavor-saving instrument of justice” [!]) and even provides a statistical analysis of Rick Ankiel’s stache experiment of which The Wright Stache Statistics Department (TWSSD for short) highly approves. Watch the whole interview clip from ESPN below.
D-Wright was absolutely scorching over the weekend in San Francisco. Might it be that David is shining on the west coast because his facial hair is that much more full at the late hours (by East Coast standards) at which he is forced to play? We can only surmise.
David’s 4 stolen bases against the Giants on Thursday night tied a club record set by Vince Coleman twice and matched by Roger Cedeno in 1999. But even more impressive is the following record, dug up by (who else?) The Elias Sports Bureau and reported by The New York Times:
David Wright is the first player since 1920 to have at least nine hits, nine runs batted in and five stolen bases over a three-game span, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.
HotFootBlog.com reports a week’s worth of stats that are even more astounding:
For the week between May 11 – May 17, David Wright’s been hitting a red hot .556, with 3 doubles, a triple, 9 RBI, and a 1.366 OPS.
The very definition of “hot.” He’s been doing it in the clucth, to boot. That 10pm-1am shadow must be the key. It must be.
The city of Columbus, Georgia, isn’t well known around the country. Simply by nature of sharing a name with the home of the Yankees’ top farm club, the place d’origine of George Steinbrenner, the nursery of Christian Rock music and the birthplace the Bush political dynasty, they are entitled to all sorts of ridicule.
The wood makes us want to sport stache.
So it was nice to hear this morning that, for once, something good was coming out of Columbus.
If you hadn’t heard already (we hadn’t), there’s an amateur, wood-bat summer baseball league called the Great South League, which lets college ballplayers hone their skills and get used to swinging lumber rather than aluminum. This year, Columbus will join the league, introducing their new team, the Wood Bats. That’s great news, but this in particular caught our attention:
This morning, MetsBlog pointed out several stories from the Daily News, SNY, Bergen Record, and Newsday that claim that Luis Castillo is currently the best hitter on the Mets. He’s currently batting .389 on the season, and .444 with RISP, an area in which the Mets have lacked his season. This is great news for Mets fans, considering Luis’ struggles over the past couple of seasons and concerns as to whether or not he would have an impact this year.
Of course, its impossible to ignore the fact that Luis rocks facial hair. Because of his beard and connectors, we can’t officially call the growth on his face a mustache. But there’s no doubt that the face sweater he’s wearing on these cold April nights have helped him stay warm and continue to make contact with the ball. And similarly, the goatee-sporting Carlos Delgado has carried his hot streak from 2008 over into 2009, currently batting .304 with 3 home runs and 14 RBIs.
On the flip-side, our Golden Boy, David Wright, has been struggling at the plate with 15 strikeouts and a .289 average. As we pointed out in an earlier post, history shows us David tends to struggle in the colder months and surge in the warmer months of the baseball season. This season is shaping up to be no different, further reinforcing our point that the man needs to keep his face toasty if he wants his team to dominate the NL East.
TWS Detroit Bureau Chief Misopogon is back with another dispatch from America’s burningest city. This time around, he looks at the 1984 Detroit Tigers and their mustaches. Can the kittens maul the Amazins? Will the presence of HoJo on both rosters cause the space-time continuum to implode? Is the devise of asking myself questions being overused? Anyhoo, Misopogon gives us the longest and most meticulously cited in this blog’s short history.
So the ‘82 Brew Crewwent down to the might of the Metstache, but if there’s one team that could compete with the ‘86 Amazins, it’s the stachiest of the stachiest, the team that put the zap in Zappa, the “Bless You Boys,” your 1984 Detroit Tigers.
Let’s see how they stache up after the jump. Read more »
With the success of The Wright Stache, we’ve decided to expand our territory and open satellite bureaus across the country. The first such office, located in Detroit, is unofficially/officially headed by Misopogon, who has offered his services for the reasonable salary of “whatever substances will make memories of Dontrelle Willis’ contract just go away.” Misopogon will chime in from time to time when events merit, and we’ll post his contributions when they merit. It’s checks and balances like this that will ensure that we bring you nothing but high quality David Wright and mustache news and opinions. Misopogon’s first dispatch from the Motor City after the jump.Read more »
The lapels are made of earlier Hernandez mustaches.
We’re a day late on this, but what an amazin’ piece on Always Amazin’ by Matthew Artus yesterday. He offers a convincing argument for our patron saint (and his killer stache) to be in the Hall of Fame. The logic centers around the Wins Above Replacement (WAR) statistic and complicated graphs. Matthew can explain it much better than I can.
Essentially, WAR attempts to quantify a player’s value over that of an “average” player. A positive WAR means that you’re an improvement over the average. A negative WAR means you’re dead weight.
Matthew goes on to show that Keith’s WAR numbers are better than Hall of Famers Tony Perez and Orlando Cepeda. The graphs are quite lovely and essentially we learn that Keith should be in the Hall of Fame where his bronze mustache can be viewed for centuries.
Now, if only we could get a Wins Above Replacement Mustache statistic. It’s WARM!
Jose thanks heaven everyday for his sweet chin whiskers.
Did you know that David Wright drove in José Reyes 42 times last year? Did you know that that is the second highest figure for a pair of teammates in the last six years? Neil Best knows it. And did you know that the highest figure for teammates in the last six years is 49 by Gary Sheffield and Rafael Furcal in 2003 while playing for the hated Atlanta Braves? That cannot stand. David and José need to destroy that record. They need to be better hairmates.
You see, José knows the power of facial hair. The mustache isn’t his thing, though. We here at The Wright Stache firmly believe that you do not select your facial hair. Your facial hair selects you.
And José is a chin hair guy. That’s the way it was meant to be. And David is a mustache guy. We know this. And once he accept it, José’s chin pubes whiskers and David’s stache will be the most productive teammates in baseball history.
Don’t believe that facial hair is the key to teammate run production? Take a look at Sheffield and Furcal in that 2003 season.
Follow José’s lead, David. The mustache has chosen you. Answer the call.
A mustache is a much better way to stay warm than whatever the hell that is on his head.
Baseball is a numbers game. No sport is more evaluated in terms of statistics than baseball is. Everyone talks about BA, OPS, VORP, WHIP, OPS, AARP and NAMBLA. You are only as good as your numbers. So today we’ll take a statistical look at how a mustache could aid David Wright by looking at some of his stat splits. Join me, won’t you?
So what exactly made the 1986 Mets so special? Was it their magical charisma? A lack of ’substance’ in Doc Gooden’s life? A fate-twisting error by Bill Buckner? Of course, those all played their part. But there were other factors as well. The 1986 Mets truly were a thing of amazin’ment. However, under the statistical microscope, the 2008 Mets, a team that will go down in history as one of the most disappointing ever, were better offensively than the 1986 team. Many will blame the 2008 bullpen and pitching in general for the monumental collapse. I blame something else entirely. Take a look: Read more »
If you're a student of the game or just interested in baseball history, you may have considered testing
your knowledge through online sports betting. Ask yourself,
what would Ty Cobb do?
Stats | Jose's Chin Pubes | 
May 27, 2009 | 
Comments (1) 
TWS Detroit Bureau Chief Misopogon is back with another dispatch from America’s burningest city. This time around, he looks at the 1984 Detroit Tigers and their mustaches. Can the kittens maul the Amazins? Will the presence of HoJo on both rosters cause the space-time continuum to implode? Is the devise of asking myself questions being overused? Anyhoo, Misopogon gives us the longest and most meticulously cited in this blog’s short history.
With the success of The Wright Stache, we’ve decided to expand our territory and open satellite bureaus across the country. The first such office, located in Detroit, is unofficially/officially headed by Misopogon, who has offered his services for the reasonable salary of “whatever substances will make memories of Dontrelle Willis’ contract just go away.” Misopogon will chime in from time to time when events merit, and we’ll post his contributions when they merit. It’s checks and balances like this that will ensure that we bring you nothing but high quality David Wright and mustache news and opinions. Misopogon’s first dispatch from the Motor City after the jump. 
