These 5 Baseball Cards Will Put Hair on Your Lip
...and help us party like it's 1949
Did you know that Al Hrabosky was born on July 21, 1949? Well, you do now, and if you have your brain calculator warmed up, you’ve probably already realized that means the Mad Hungarian turns 75 today.
To celebrate, I thought we’d whip out the cardboard of a very exclusive club that counts Hrabosky as a member — Babies of 1949 Born Before July 22 Who Grew Into the Men of Iconic Baseball Mustaches.
As you might imagine, the group is pretty exclusive. And for our purposes below, it’s even more exclusive, because each guy has to…
Have been born in 1949.
Be 75 already (i.e., born before July 22).
Be alive (I’m in a celebrate-the-here-and-now mood).
Have had an iconic baseball mustache at some point.
Have had a baseball card showcasing said iconic baseball card.
So with all that said, here are five baseball cards featuring members of the B1BBJ2WGIMIBM fraternity.
1976 Topps Bobby Grich (#335)
This card makes it clear that Grich, born on January 15, could have been anything he wanted.
The Marlboro Man.
Tom Selleck.
Sam Malone.
Tarzan, King of the Jungle Jentleman’s Club.
Disco inferno.
Jim Palmer’s daddy.
Topps only enhanced the effect by turning Bobby into Bob for this masterpiece (which doesn’t feel nearly as heinous as a similar tactic they pulled on Roberto Clemente for decades).
It was all there for his taking. How lucky for baseball, and us as fans and collectors, that Grich decided to take his talents to the diamond?
Pretty darn lucky, I’d say, considering that Grich graced us with a near-Hall-of-Fame-level career that featured six All-Star selections, three Gold Gloves, and a Silver Slugger as one of the dozen or so greatest second basemen of all time.
1980 Topps Bake McBride (#495)
OK, to be fair and in the sense of full disclosure, this card and McBride himself skirt the rules of the B1BBJ2WGIMIBM club. In particular, Bake’s mustache was never really iconic, sometimes was non-existent on his baseball cards, and was definitely the weak sister of his facial hair ensemble.
But when McBride had that full ensemble in full bloom, and accented by his Oscar Gamble coif, few men cut a more striking figure of hirsute excellence against the diamond sky.
McBride, born February 3, was no scrub on the diamond, either. He christened an 11-year big career by winning the Rookie of the Year award with the Cardinals in 1974 and followed up with an All-Star selection in 1976 and some MVP votes for the 1980 Phillies.
Collectors were greeted from their wax packs that summer by the peak-plumage Bake you see in the 1980 Topps card above.
1984 Fleer Jerry Morales (#498)
For the most part, Jerry Morales was not a star player, though he did manage double-digit home runs for the Cubs each season from 1974 through 1977, and for the Tigers in 1979. He also made the National League All-Star team in 1977.
All that didn’t get Morales much face time in the national press, but you can see from his baseball cards that the outfielder with the February 18th birthday sported a thick, dark mustache for much of his playing career.
This was no lip pushbroom like you might find hovering under Tim Blackwell’s nose, but it was still a better, more polished mustache than most mere mortal men could ever muster. Think peak Keith Hernandez or a harbinger to Rafael Palmeiro.
In all Morales, played parts of 15 years in the majors, hitting .259 with 95 home runs and 570 RBI. He ended up back on the north side of Chicago in 1983, making his 1984 Fleer a career capper.
Not to mention the elusive and rare double-stacked Cubs Cubs logo logo.
1978 Topps Phil Garner (#53)
Now Garner did sport a pushbroom in his lip during much of his more-star-studded major league career. He used it to clear a path to three All-Star Games and a World Series championship with the 1979 “We Are Family (and hairy)” Pittsburgh Pirates.
Scrap Iron, who was born on April 30, spent parts of 16 summers in the major leagues, swatting more than 100 home runs among his nearly 1600 hits. He also stole more than 200 bases while playing capably at both second and third on a regular basis at various times.
All those productive years gave Garner plenty of chances to make a cardboard impression, and he has several top-notch baseball cards to his name. For my money, the 1978 Topps beauty you see above is one of the best — the Pirates pinstripes, the gritty baseball action, the Bucs teammates watching the play unfold in the background — along with the “crowd,” all handful of them.
And, of course, that majestic mustache rising skyward, imploring the baseball gods to bestow good fortune on the batted ball that waits suspended in the sky somewhere out-of-frame for its fate to be adjudicated.
1983 Donruss Al Hrabosky (#475)
Last but not least — most, in fact, since he engendered this entire mini-universe of ours — is Hrabosky himself.
Look at Mad’s early baseball cards, and he scarcely looks even perturbed. There’s not a wisp of facial hair to be seen, save for the occasional peer-pressured sideburn.
But by the middle 1970s, Hrabosky was sporting a beard that would eventually take on diabolical proportions and help build his mound mystique. Did any 5’11” ever look more intimidating on the mound?
That beard also ostensibly inspired later fashions, including the fire-bearded Bruce Sutter, who curiously followed Hrabosky to the Cardinals and the Braves.
By the time I was collecting baseball cards, though, Hrabosky showed up mostly without the full beard, having seemingly funneled all those cheek follicles into a mustache that amped up the intimidation by a factor of Hungo.
Actually, but the time I really started collecting — 1983 — Hrabosky had thrown his last big league pitch, which made this 1983 Donruss card a career capper. Fantasztikus!
—
Some other candidates I considered for the inaugural B1BBJ2WGIMIBM induction class included Jerry Reuss, Richie Zisk, and Terry Hughes.
Maybe we’ll meet back here in a year and consider their cases once more. Who knows?
In the meantime, which player had your favorite facial hair during your early years of fandom? Maybe there’s another club lurking in there somewhere.
Thanks for reading.
—Adam
Did you know that Shohei Ohtani and Jarren Duran made All-Star history last week? Their home runs were the first ever hit at the Midsummer Classic played on July 16. That’s one of the little nuggets I uncovered going down my latest rabbit hole — digging into the history of All-Star home runs.
I wrote it all up in a quick eBook, free on Amazon the next two days:
Book procured!
My favorite facial hair as a kid belonged to Don Mattingly, who I got to meet over Zoom much later.