The American mustache enthusiast community appears to have finally found its very own Benedict Arnold: Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly.
Mattingly was once a hero to mustachioed men everywhere during his heyday as the New York Yankees’ All-Star first baseman. Yet a man with such previous conviction in his facial hair had been sporting a bare upper lip in recent years as a major league coach and manager, and is now willing to walk away from that glorious past in the name of strict rules.
An Appreciation for Don Mattingly's Mustache in the 1980s https://t.co/Nk208cAapq pic.twitter.com/AOkGKgEaSZ
— Men's Journal (@MensJournal) February 22, 2016
The former Yankees great has turned his back on the mustache and facial hair in general, supporting his new club’s recent requirement that all players be clean-shaven. Apparently, Montgomery Burns left quite an impression on Mattingly.
But as Mattingly is quickly learning, no one likes a hypocrite, and the men over at the American Mustache Institute had some strong words for their ex-poster child.
Mattingly’s body of work is a rare case in Mustached Americana in that as a player for the Yankees, while wearing a robust Chevron-style upper mouth brow, he failed to win anything beyond a rewarding case of herpes (although he should qualify for the Hall of Very Good). In 1991, he was even benched for refusing to cut his Mississippi Waterfall-style mullet, suggesting his complaint was that the rule was not being enforced equitably among everyone on the Yankees. His results were similar during a bare-faced tenure as Dodgers manager — flirting with high expectations yet always failing short while guiding a team that permitted facial hair…
“The entire episode marks yet another dark chapter in the way the Mustached American community can often be treated,” said Dr. Adam Paul Causgrove, chief executive officer of the American Mustache Institute. “But we will continue to fight for those who have no representation and firmly push our agenda, making the case of the power of facial hair and all that it brings to all walks of life.”
The AMI post is from a tongue-in-cheek organization that is dedicated to, “Protecting the rights of, and fighting discrimination against mustached Americans, by promoting the growth, care, and culture of the mustache.” Satire or not, some of those barbs at Mattingly still sting. Let this be a warning to future “bare-faced mortals” — you mess with the mustache at your own risk.
