'Stash

Liam Hendriks says "Dirty's in town. He's with the Fort Myers Miracle." I'd known this. In fact, I had talked to him the night before and tried to explain to him about Jarrad being nicknamed "Princess". Allen's response had been that Eacott has balls and that Liam can whine with the best of them.

If I put all the Aussie's together, they still could not out-whine Whiney Wally. But that's another story.

"He showed up in our room last night at 10:30."

"Yeah," I say. "He has a way of doing that."

"He has a mustache," Liam informs me. I'd known he'd had it before he got here so it wasn't a shock. Evidently Liam did not. "He looks stupid in it."

A bunch of the Beloit guys had grown mustaches after Rob Delany's bush became the talk of Wisconsin.

On the whole, I though de San looked pretty good in his, which sort of surprised me, then Dirty's generally pretty easy on the eyes to start with. I don't say much about the boys looks in front of the other boys because this always draws some type of comment, one way or the other.*

"I can't even grow one," says Danny Berlind says.

"He's part of the mustache brigade," I tell him. "There's several that have them."

"This is three days growth," Liam tells me, offering his less than scruffy looking cheek. Let's just say if he didn't in shave between starts, you'd probably never notice.

Danny looks at him ruefully. "That's more than I can manage."

"The mustaches are kind of silly," I tell them. "I wish they'd let you guys have goatees."

Berlind tries to picture himself in a goatee.

I'm wondering if this is not some strange practice in which the older guys are trying to distance themselves from the rookies, who can't quite manage facial hair yet.

"We need to have a Gillette promotion at the stadium," I tell them, which raises a chuckle or too.
I should note that of late, most of the mustache brigade has indeed become friends with Mr. Gillette again. "It's just too hot," David Shinskie said, but in his case, I think it's because his parents had come into town. If you notice in the above referenced article, even Delany says his is coming off before he goes home.

* (For example, TJ had give me some cards of Milt when he was with the Detroit Tigers. I told Milt and followed it up with "You used to be a little hotty!" "USED TO BE?????" he chokes. "That mean you don't have it any more," Ivan chips in. "What am I a now?" "A mature, handsome gentleman," I tell him with a mental roll of the eyes. Geez.)