In honor of the month of Movember, here are the best beards in baseball, sorted by position.
It’s Movember, that time of year when men around the country put their shavers and razors away and let the facial hair grow. It’s not just for appearance’s sake, though. Movember is the month when the Movember Foundation charity raises funds focused on prevention and treatment of prostate cancer, testicular cancer, and mental health.
Facial hair has been sprouting on ballfields across the country over the last few years. Baseball fans surely noticed the trend during the World Series between the Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers. It was right there for all to see with the starting pitcher matchup in Game 1, which featured two bearded left-handers in Dallas Keuchel and Clayton Kershaw.
House That Hank Built
It shouldn’t be surprising that beards have flourished around baseball. Many current players are part of the Millennial generation, a generation easily identified by beards and manbuns, not to mention Twitter accounts, Snapchat, Instagram pages, and being blamed for everything wrong in the world by the Baby Boomers.
Last April, longtime Dodgers announcer Vin Scully waxed poetic about beards during a game against the Padres. Scully mentioned that he had done some research on beards and started off his monologue with the line, “First of all, they say way back to the dawn of humanity, beards evolved—number one—because ladies liked them and—number two—It was the idea of frightening off adversaries and wild animals.”
Scully wasn’t done there, of course. When he starts talking, you never know how long he’ll continue or where he’ll end up. He went on to reference Alexander the Great, Abraham Lincoln, and a “divine mandate” for beards in two books of the Bible, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy.
The proliferation of beards is relatively new to baseball. There was a traveling team in the first half of the 20th century known as the House of David that had full beards and long hair, but they were an exception. Think of the many old-time Hall of Fame players, like Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, and Mickey Mantle. They were all facial hair-free.
Long hair started to trend in the late 60s as the hippie movement came of age. Mustaches, sideburns, and gigantic afros were popular in the 70s. Outfielder Oscar Gamble may have had the biggest afro ever seen in baseball. His 1976 Topps baseball card is the stuff of legend. Unfortunately, when he was traded to the Yankees, the hair had to go. The Yankees have had a grooming policy that allows mustaches but no beards or long hair ever since George Steinbrenner purchased the team in 1973.
There were some African-American ballplayers in the 1970s and 1980s who sported full beards, like Garry Maddox and Dave Parker. Parker’s beard met the same fate as Gamble’s afro. He signed as a free agent with the Cincinnati Reds before the 1984 season and had to shave the beard. Without his beard, he never again reached the heights of greatness he’d achieved as a member of the We R Fam-A-Lee Pittsburgh Pirates.
The goatee took the spotlight in the 1990s. Mike Piazza and Jeff Bagwell had Hall of Fame careers while sporting goatees. It should be noted that the word goatee has evolved from solely being used to describe hair on the wearer’s chin to a more inclusive description of hair on the chin and above the lip. Facial hair purists would call the latter a Van Dyke.
The current trend of big, thick, luscious beards was likely started by eccentric closer Brian Wilson when he was with the San Francisco Giants. He let his hair grow free during the second half of the 2010 season that culminated with a Giants victory in the World Series. Three years later, Red Sox teammates Mike Napoli and Jonny Gomes were prominent bearded faces on a team with many beards that won the 2013 World Series.
Now, almost every team (except the Yankees) have at least one full-bearded member. With that in mind, let’s look at a lineup of the best beards in baseball.
Catcher—Brian McCann and Evan Gattis, Houston Astros
The beards of Brian McCann and Evan Gattis are greater together than apart. They do not like to be separated. They were together for the first time in the big leagues on the 2013 Atlanta Braves and helped lead the team to a 96-66 record and a playoff spot. That was the first year Evan Gattis’ beard played in the big leagues, so it was not yet at full strength.
Sadly, the beards were separated that December when Brian McCann’s beard signed as a free agent with the Yankees and had to say goodbye to Evan Gattis’ beard. Without the bearded duo, the Braves saw their fortunes fall to 79-83 the following season and they haven’t had a winning season since.
McCann and his beard played three seasons with the Yankees and made the playoffs one time. Gattis and his beard were traded to the Houston Astros before the 2015 season and made the playoffs once in the past two years. Separate, the beards had some success, but they would need to come together again to achieve their ultimate goal of baseball domination.
It happened this year when McCann was traded to the Astros last offseason. The beards were together again. They combined to hit 30 homers, drove in 117 runs, and helped their favorite bearded pitcher, Dallas Keuchel, win 14 games on their way to the playoffs. Then they beat the Red Sox in the ALDS, the Yankees in the ALCS and the Dodgers in the World Series. Never had two beards been so happy.
Look at the scientific data. When Brian McCann’s beard and Evan Gattis’ beard are teammates, their team averages 98.5 wins per year and one World Series title every two years. When their beards are separated, their teams average just 84 wins per year and miss the playoffs 67 percent of the time. Keep these beards together, Houston!
Fun fact for you: if Brian McCann’s beard got lost hiking in the wilderness for six months, it would come back looking like Evan Gattis’ beard.
First Base—Eric Thames, Milwaukee Brewers
There were a few contenders for best beard at first base. Eric Hosmer’s beard is smooth and sleek and has a well-defined border that is appealing to the eyes. It probably looks good in the Chevy Midnight edition Colorado truck he won as the 2016 All-Star Game MVP.
Matt Carpenter’s beard takes Eric Hosmer’s beard to the next level. It’s thicker and bolder, but starting to get a touch of the elder statesman gray. It also includes a bolder mustache on the upper lip. Based on my limited research, the mouth in the center of Matt Carpenter’s beard doesn’t smile very often.
Carlos Santana’s beard stands alone, without any need for a frivolous mustache. It’s fuller on the sides and keeps company with the gold chain around Santana’s neck. Of all the contenders for best beard at first base, Carlos Santana’s beard was the only one to make the playoffs this year.
While Hosmer, Carpenter, and Santana have nice enough beards, the winner here is Eric Thames’ beard, which is the source of all his power. Before the beard, Thames was a major league washout who hit .250/.296/.431 in 181 games with the Blue Jays and Mariners in 2011-12. He then took his talents to South Korea, grew a beard, and returned with a vengeance. Now the beard is his trademark. Without it, he’s unrecognizable. Just ask these Milwaukee fans:
Thames’ beard is thicker and fuller than the beards of Hosmer, Carpenter, and Santana. It extends from his chin to his chest like a wiry jungle. It looks like a beekeepers’ beard if bees were jet black. Thames’ beard is also versatile, having played both first base and the outfield this year. It’s a menacing beard when Thames is hitting bombs, like he did 31 times this year. It’s also a cultured beard, like when Thames toured the MillerCoors facility with teammates Corey Knebel and Oliver Drake in anticipation of crafting their own beer. Let us all raise a glass of suds to Eric Thames’ beard, the best beard of any first baseman.
More bearded wonders
Thames’ beard is thicker and fuller than the beards of Hosmer, Carpenter, and Santana. It extends from his chin to his chest like a wiry jungle. It looks like a beekeepers’ beard if bees were jet black. Thames’ beard is also versatile, having played both first base and the outfield this year. It’s a menacing beard when Thames is hitting bombs, like he did 31 times this year. It’s also a cultured beard, like when Thames toured the MillerCoors facility with teammates Corey Knebel and Oliver Drake in anticipation of crafting their own beer. Let us all raise a glass of suds to Eric Thames’ beard, the best beard of any first baseman.
Second base—Robinson Cano, Seattle Mariners
When it comes to quantity of beards, second base is high on the list. Many well-known second basemen in baseball have beards, including Jose Altuve and Dustin Pedroia, who may have grown their beards so they don’t get carded at nightclubs. Altuve and Pedroia’s beards are scruffy, a bit beyond the “Miami Vice” stage but not as far along as Daniel Murphy’s beard.
In a New York Post interview in 2014 when he played for the Mets, Murphy was asked if his beard is a superstition thing. He said it was a “laziness thing.” When asked if his wife likes it, he said, “To a certain point. That’s usually when I shave: ‘You look like a serial killer. You should shave.’”
Two of the beefier beards among the second baseman belong to Josh Harrison and Rougned Odor. Harrison’s beard is wilder, with tufts of hair sprouting from the sides and bottom of his face. If his beard were the front lawn of the house down the street, his neighbors would complain to the Homeowners Association.
Odor’s beard is equally wild on the front of his chinny-chin-chin, but less wild on the sides. His beard packs a wallop. There’s enough bushy beard coming off Odor’s chin that it could be hit by a baseball and he would get to first pain-free.
While other second basemen have bigger, fuller beards, the winner here is Robinson Cano. His beard often has a very nice shape that includes a squared-out area of hairless skin on the front part of his chin. It’s a professional look for the former New York Yankees player who had to be beardless when he played in the Bronx but is now free to grow it out with the Seattle Mariners.
Shortstop—Brandon Crawford, San Francisco Giants
One of the contenders for best beard at shortstop is Freddy Galvis, but his beard sometimes gets trimmed down to just a goatee. Perhaps it’s shy. Perhaps it can’t make up its mind. Perhaps Galvis likes the goatee, and only sheer laziness makes the trail of scruff stretch to his ears to become more beard-like. Galvis’ beard lacks the consistency necessary to be the best beard of any shortstop. If there’s a best dreadlocks competition, Galvis will be notified.
Elvis Andrus and his beard surprisingly hit 20 home runs this year, after never hitting more than eight in a season. There’s no proof that it was the beard that was responsible for the power surge, but there’s also no proof that it wasn’t his beard that was responsible. Back when Andrus was a clean-shaven youth of 21, he hit zero home runs in a season. An aspiring sabermetrician may want to analyze the data.
When it comes to bearded shortstops, you have to go with the San Francisco Giants’ Brandon Crawford, the man with two World Series rings. His beard was just beyond the five o’clock shadow phase in 2012 when the Giants swept the Tigers in the World Series. When they beat the Royals in 2014, Crawford’s beard had grown to keep pace with the wild mess of hair flowing from below his baseball cap. If he threw some bleach in that hair, he’d be the Andre Agassi of baseball.
Third base—Justin Turner, Los Angeles Dodgers
The best beard at third base is a contender for the best beard in all of baseball and it belongs to Justin Turner, aka Tormund Giantsbane from Game of Thrones. Like Tormund, Turner is a trusted leader and dangerous fighter. Umm, make that dangerous hitter. Unlike Tormund, Turner has never boasted of bedding a she-bear, but MLB teams don’t play games in Montana.
Along with Turner, there is a handful of very good third baseman with beards in the National League, including Kris Bryant, Nolan Arenado, and Eugenio Suarez. The best-bearded American League third baseman is Josh Donaldson, but he doesn’t have much competition that league.
Nolan Arenado isn’t always bearded. His beard comes and goes. Sometimes his face years to be hairy and sometimes it craves the cool blade of a sharp razor. When it comes in, it’s quite scraggly, like the rough of a dilapidated golf course at the end of a long, hot summer.
Bryant’s beard is subtle. Unlike many beards, it often doesn’t connect with his mustache and includes a soul patch-like tuft of hair below his lip. His beard looks like a GQ magazine beard. Eugenio Suarez’s beard is the Venezuelan version of Kris Bryant’s beard, complete with the soul patch below the lip.
Left field—Ben Gamel, Seattle Mariners
Ben Gamel’s beard secretly hopes to someday be as glorious as Justin Turner’s beard. For now, the red-bearded left fielder in the Pacific Northwest will be content to let his beard shield him from the Seattle rain in relative anonymity. Gamel’s beard is the least recognizable of these left fielder’s beards, but it’s still a great beard that could one day be magnificent.
Two contenders for best beard on a left fielder faced each other in this year’s World Series. The Astros’ Marwin Gonzalez has a beard that can play at multiple positions, including left field, first base, second base, shortstop, and third base. It’s a versatile beard and a powerful beard, as he showed with this World Series home run.
Chris Taylor also has a versatile beard, playing games at second base, third base, shortstop, center field and left field. Taylor had a breakout season, and his beard was right there every step of the way. In the end, the Houston Astros and Marwin Gonzalez’ beard won their first World Series ever by beating the Los Angeles Dodgers and Chris Taylor’s beard.
Marcell Ozuna’s beard may have to adjust to a different location next year because the new ownership of the Marlins is looking to lower their payroll. Rumor on the street is that Ozuna’s beard could be headed to Oakland, a city that had some impressive facial hair in the 1970s. With the A’s, Reggie Jackson sported a beard and mustache. It would eventually evolve into just a mustache when he became “Mr. October” with the New York Yankees.
Center field—Charlie Blackmon
Charlie Blackmon dominates every other center fielder in the beard game so hard that there really were no other contenders. His beard is among the league-leaders in volume. When Blackmon drives, he doesn’t need an airbag because his beard will protect him in the case of a head-on collision. When he goes to the beach, his beard is a flotation device.
It wasn’t always this way. There was a time when Charlie Blackmon’s weak chin was visible to the entire world. That was back when he was a rookie in 2011. Unfortunately, he broke his leg and missed the last few months of the season. That fall, he went back to school to finish his finance degree at Georgia Tech.
Blackmon grew a beard when he was recovering from the injured leg. Maybe he wanted to fit in with the Millennials on campus. He told himself he wouldn’t shave until he could walk. When the time came, he shaved it into “awful-looking sideburn chops, like a mustache.” The beard was short-lived, though, because Blackmon was clean-shaven when he arrived at spring training in 2012 and remained facial-hair free for most of the that season and the next.
The beard Blackmon proudly displays on his face today has its genesis in Australia, where Blackmon was traveling around the same time as the 2013 World Series. That was the year that the Red Sox won the title with a very hairy bunch of players. The word “Sasquatchian” comes to mind. When Blackmon arrived in spring training before the 2014 season, he had the beginnings of what would become a beautiful beard.
Blackmon played his first full season in the big leagues in 2014 and the beard was there for all of it. By the beginning of the 2015 season, his beard had become a yeard, which is what happens when you let it grow for a year. He had another good season and the yeard soon became a tweard, which is a two-year beard. If Blackmon keeps it going, he could reach terminal beard status, like the two guys in ZZ Top.
Blackmon is at the point now where he can’t possibly shave his beard. He was an All-Star and a 2 WAR player his first year with the beard. He bumped that up to 2.3 WAR the next season and 4.1 WAR the year after that. Now that the beard has reached its full-faced glory, Blackmon is a 6.5 WAR player who just set personal bests in hits, runs, homers, and RBI, along with his top marks ever in all three triple-slash numbers. Fear the beard.
Right field—Bryce Harper, Washignton Nationals
The final four for best beard on a right fielder includes two famous guys and two lesser-known beardsmen. The lesser-known guys are Domingo Santana and Steven Souza, Jr. Santana is teammates on the Brewers with the Eric Thames, whose beard is the tops among first baseman. Santana’s beard is what Thames’ beard looked like about a year ago. Give him another year and he may own the best right field beard in baseball.
Souza and his beard play their home games in Tampa Bay. Luckily, the Rays play in a climate-controlled dome, so Souza and his beard don’t have to suffer in the heat and humidity of the Florida summer. His beard would be much more useful for protection from the elements if he played for the Mariners in the Pacific Northwest, which is where he was born (Everett, Washington).
Santana and Souza have nice beards, but they don’t have the star power of the other finalists for this position. The brightest lights are currently shining on George Springer and his beard after they won the MVP Award for the 2017 World Series, won by Springer’s Astros. He and his beard hit .379/.417/1.000 and tied the record for most home runs in a World Series, with five (tying 1977 Reggie Jackson and 2009 Chase Utley).
Springer and his beard are the hot items right now because of the Astros’ world championship, but Bryce Harper and his beard were featured on the cover of ESPN’s Body issue in 2015. They won the NL MVP that year in what was one of the best season’s ever for a 22-year-old. It was definitely the best season ever for a bearded 22-year-old, but a few clean-shaven 22-year-olds may have been better (1941 Ted Williams, 1909 Ty Cobb). For appearance and overall excellence, Bryce Harper has the best beard of any right fielder.
DH—Nelson Cruz, Seattle Mariners
The battle for best beard on a Designated Hitter was the toughest of them all. It came down to Nelson Cruz and Edwin Encarnacion, a pair of 30-something sluggers from the Dominican Republic who combined for 77 round-trippers this season. They were two of the best DHs in baseball this year and the beard competition between them was intense.
Edwin Encarnacion’s beard can best be classified as a chinstrap with a soul patch that adds a little something extra. He leaves most of his cheeks and his upper lip bare. Maybe that’s the way his fiancé prefers it. He is a romantic at heart, after all. After signing a three-year deal with Cleveland in January, Encarnacion asked his girlfriend to marry him by spelling out “Te Casas Conmigo?” in rose petals. Encarnacion has the beard of a lover, not a fighter.
Nelson Cruz has a beard that is very similar to Edwin Encarnacion’s, but a discernible eye will notice the differences. Cruz does not have the soul patch, for one, and his chinstrap-like beard is a little thicker, more in the chin curtain range. If he let it go untamed, it would border on mutton chops. The overall effect is a beard that enhances the face of Cruz, without obscuring it. It’s a beard that requires attention and it’s the best beard of all the DHs.
Starting Pitcher—Dallas Keuchel, Houston Astros
There are plenty of starting pitchers with show beards, including some of the best pitchers in baseball. Clayton Kershaw was once a smooth-faced youngster, but his beard has developed over time and grew particularly scruffy during the Dodgers’ run to the World Series this year. Fellow lefty Chris Sale has followed a similar pattern of beard evolution but has yet to make a World Series run.
Young Michael Fulmer came to the big leagues fully-bearded in 2016 and won the AL Rookie of the Year Award, beating out smooth-faced Gary Sanchez. This year, Fulmer, Chris Sale, Corey Kluber, Felix Hernandez, and Jacob deGrom teamed up with the durable workwear company Carhartt to raise $125,400 for veterans in the “Strikeout for Vets” campaign. Carhartt and Fulmer make a perfect sponsorship pair. He and his beard should be in their advertisements.
Corey Kluber and Stephen Strasburg are bearded Cy Young contenders in the AL and NL, respectively. Kluber should win the award for the second time, while Strasburg is likely to finish third behind Kershaw and Max Scherzer, but not necessarily in that order.
While the aforementioned pitchers with beards are all quite impressive, the winner here is Dallas Keuchel. One of the great matchups during this year’s World Series was Dallas Keuchel’s beard versus Justin Turner’s beard. As Turner said on Media Day, “The beards aren’t throwing any pitches, or taking the swings. It’s about the man underneath them.” Well said, Justin Turner, well said.
Relief Pitcher—Craig Kimbrel, Boston Red Sox
The two best relievers in baseball this year were Kenley Jansen in the NL and Craig Kimbrel in the AL, both bearded. Jansen won the Trevor Hoffman NL Reliever of the Year award and Kimbrel won the Mariano Rivera AL Reliever of the Year award. It’s fitting that the two best relievers in baseball had beards because beards are ubiquitous in MLB bullpens these days.
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There’s a chance we saw the absolute peak of baseball beardom during this year’s World Series. In the epic 10-inning, 13-12 victory by the Astros in Game 5, 11 of the 14 pitchers had beards. We may never see 11 bearded pitchers in one World Series game again. Trends come and go and the beards have been around a while. They could be on their way out.
Until the trend fades away you’ll find plenty of beards in baseball bullpens. It must be something in the water. And the bullpen beards are impressive, from the big red bush of Sean Doolittle to the mostly-in-the-front black beard of Pat Neshek. Lefty Andrew Miller has been one of the best relievers in baseball the last few years. His beard had to go on hiatus while with the Yankees for a year-and-a-half but returned to its full glory when he was traded to Cleveland in 2016.
When it comes to the best relief pitcher beard, it has to be the Amish stylings of Craig Kimbrel. If you need a 98 mph fastball when the game is on the line, call Craig Kimbrel. If you need a strikeout with the tying run on third in the ninth inning of a close game, call Craig Kimbrel. If you need a field plowed, a cow milked, or a barn raised, call Craig Kimbrel.
Next: Phillies: Pitching decisions magnified
Baseball’s Best Beards by Position
- Catcher—Brian McCann and Evan Gattis, Houston Astros
- First Base—Eric Thames, Milwaukee Brewers
- Second base—Robinson Cano, Seattle Mariners
- Shortstop—Brandon Crawford, San Francisco Giants
- Third base—Justin Turner, Los Angeles Dodgers
- Left field—Ben Gamel, Seattle Mariners
- Center field—Charlie Blackmon
- Right field—Bryce Harper, Washignton Nationals
- DH—Nelson Cruz, Seattle Mariners
- Starting Pitcher—Dallas Keuchel, Houston Astros
- Relief Pitcher—Craig Kimbrel, Boston Red Sox