To be(ard) or not to be(ard)

OK, I hate the Boston Red Sox. Since my father, waiting to ship out to England at the beginning of WW II was given a ticket to a Yankee/Dodgers World Series game and decided to always root for whichever team won, he and then I have been Yankee fans. Even in southern West Virginia I would stay up to hear the sports on the 11 o'clock news to see if the Yankees won.

So, I tend to hate the Red Sox and everything about them.

So, that might explain why I hate their beards....

Now, this is from someone who has worn a beard since he was 23--which means I've had a beard myself nearly 2/3 of my life. And maybe it's just the clean-cut Yankee look that George Steinbrenner insisted upon, but, for whatever reason, I really hate the Red Sox players beards.

They look like that ancient baseball team of orthodox Jews called The House of David.

Maybe it's that the beards are really not trimmed at all and some of them look like follicle disasters, but I can't tell you how offended by those Boston beards.

It might just be that baseball is the issue.

I have no problems with players in other sports--football, basketball, etc.--having beards. But baseball is the game played without a clock on a diamond shaped field with foul lines and an umpire at every base--and down the foul lines in the playoffs--and a 4/3 ratio of balls to strikes and 9 innings--all mystical numbers. Baseball is simply the most orderly and yet tranquil of all sports. (I read somewhere lately that there is only 23 minutes of action in a 3 hour + baseball game.) Lots of time for reflection and pondering in baseball.

If the Red Sox had 3 day growths, like some male movie stars, I could take it. But these guys have beards that defy the orderly and tranquil nature of the game. Those beards are disorderly and disturbing--not something that works with baseball, in my mind.

Or then, maybe it's just because I hate the Red Sox on such a DNA level.

Whatever, "Go Cardinals!!" (Even though the Cardinals are in the bottom five of all baseball teams in my ranking....Go figure....)