‘The hairs versus the squares’: How the 1972 A’s won it all while breaking barriers with their upper lips

A few hours before Game 1 of the 1972 World Series, Reds catcher Johnny Bench spotted A’s first baseman Mike Epstein out of the corner of his eye. Bench grinned, gave Epstein’s sideburns a tug, and snapped a picture with his mustachioed friend, lamenting the fact that he had to shave his facial hair prior to Opening Day. Reds manager Sparky Anderson was known for running a tight ship — a ship that had no place for facial hair, or even hair that fell beyond the ears.

Anderson’s teams weren’t alone. From roughly 1914 to 1970, mustaches didn’t really exist in baseball. Wally Schang, a catcher for the Philadelphia A’s, sported one in 1914 and was considered the last to wear a mustache during the regular season until seven-time All-Star Dick Allen of the Cardinals broke the streak by wearing a mustache during the 1970 season. Most players, if they did have them, shaved them by Opening Day.

Which is why, when the A’s and Reds met in the 1972 World Series — “the hairs versus the squares” — it looked like the perfect juxtaposition, the A’s mustachioed ying to the Reds’ clean-shaven yang. At least, it looked that way.

“As one sees, one does,” Anderson, a man who insisted his players wear a coat and tie to dinner on the road, said to the Associated Press. “Millions of kids see our ball club on television. I want them to see neat, well-disciplined men. Maybe they’ll take some tips from it.”

#SaturdaySwag: Reggie showed up to 1972 #springtraining with a mustache. By season's end, @athletics were known as "Mustache Gang" & won WS. pic.twitter.com/NWamhqIWa8

— National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum ⚾ (@baseballhall) February 18, 2017

To put it mildly, the A’s were not considered favorites heading into the 1972 Fall Classic. Part of that perception could be attributed to the team playing without its RBI machine, future Hall of Famer Reggie Jackson, who pulled his hamstring stealing home in the last game of the ALCS against Detroit. (Jackson, incidentally, was also responsible for igniting the team’s mustache trend when he showed up with one during spring training that season.) Part of the underdog perception could’ve been because Oakland wasn’t a major media market at the time. But in 1993, star right-hander Catfish Hunter gave another explanation.

“(The biggest thrill of my baseball career) was winning the 1972 World Series, because the Oakland A’s at that time were the outlaw gang,” the Hall of Famer told the Tampa Bay Times. “We were lucky to be there and that was it. We weren’t supposed to win anything.

“We were different. We were the long-haired mustache gang, and nobody really thought we were ballplayers. They thought we were comedians out there on the field. They always said when we beat Cincinnati in the 1972 World Series that Cincinnati was the better ball club. Then in 1973 they said the Mets were better than we were. Then in 1974, they said the Dodgers were better than we were.”

“They” might’ve said that, but in the end, only two teams in baseball history won three consecutive World Series — one of them clean-shaven as could be (1998-2000 Yankees) and the other a team the New York Daily News said evoked comparisons to the road company from “Hair”.

And it all started in spring training in 1972, when a minor quibble turned into a marketing opportunity — sowing the seeds of rebellion in a sport resistant to change.

To understand how the entire A’s 25-man roster ended up with mustaches by Father’s Day in 1972, some context is necessary — namely, about A’s owner Charlie Finley, and Major League Baseball before free agency debuted in 1976.

Tensions between the owners and players had reached an all-time high. In early April of 1972, major-league players went on a nearly two-week strike for the first time in baseball history, as part of an attempt to increase pension fund payments and add salary arbitration to the collective bargaining agreement. Without free agency, players felt they had no leverage — which affected just about every aspect of their profession, from commanding a fair salary to what they wore above their upper lip.

Even in a pre-free agency era, Finley, who was also the team’s general manager, was known for being notoriously stingy, and his players resented him for it.

“Trying to get a raise out of Charlie was like trying to get blood out of a turnip,” former A’s catcher Gene Tenace said in a recent phone interview. “All the owners in those days had all the leverage. You’d take what they would give you. Take it or leave it. And he would threaten you sometimes and say, ‘You know, you still got (minor league) options left.’ He did that with me. I said, ‘Go ahead, send me to Triple A.’ I’d throw it right back at him. ‘Let me help you get that option right out of the way. Send me back down.’”

Added Hall of Fame reliever Rollie Fingers, in a phone interview last week: “I hated December, because that was when you had to negotiate your contracts and deal with Charlie on the phone. After the 1972 World Series I was making $29,000 and he gave me a $1,000 raise after the World Series. I mean, a $1,000 raise, are you kidding me? And he gave Joe Rudi the same contract that he had the year before. That was just the way Charlie was.”

After hitting 47 home runs and driving in 118 runs in 1969, Jackson was expecting a raise from Finley. But like many of his teammates, instead, he found conflict.

“It went downhill after Reggie’s 1969 contract (negotiation),” said A’s equipment manager Steve Vucinich, who has been with the A’s since the team moved to Oakland. “Reggie had the bad year in 1970 and Charlie tried to send him down to Triple A and opted at the last minute not to. And then in 1971 he said, ‘What the hell, I’m just going to have a good year.’ And he did, and 1972 was the same way.”

The owners’ control went beyond player salaries. Most teams had policies on facial hair, with said policy being that it wasn’t allowed. Combine that fact with a larger-than-life-personality like Jackson’s, and a stingier-than-most-owner like Finley, and you get … combustion.

Jackson strutted into spring training in March of 1972 not only sporting a mustache, but according to multiple teammates, a full beard. Finley, not one to relinquish control, devised a plan instead.

Captain Sal jumps for joy as the Oakland A’s capture the Bay Area’s first World Series championship on this date in 1972. pic.twitter.com/cojFych3Qp

— Oakland A's (@Athletics) October 22, 2016

Finley knew Jackson’s individuality was important to him. So, he tasked four players on the A’s — including Fingers, who had never worn a mustache in his life — with growing them, in an attempt to entice Jackson to shave his off, without actually asking him to.

Fingers admits it wasn’t all Finley’s idea.

“We were trying to get him to shave it off, because at the time we didn’t think mustaches were right for someone who was playing in the big leagues,” Fingers said. “I had never had a mustache. I had never even thought about growing a mustache before then.”

Jackson didn’t budge. In fact, the plan backfired. The A’s opened the 1972 season on a 12-4 run; by June 10, they were up five games in the AL West. The common denominator? Mustaches.

“Ballplayers are probably the most superstitious animals in the world, so we kept them and that year we made it to the playoffs,” Fingers said. “We beat Detroit and went to the World Series and beat the Reds. I think some of the guys shaved them off in the wintertime, but come spring training in 1973, we all had mustaches again. And then it just became routine. After winning three straight world championships, you’re not going to shave the mustaches off. So we didn’t.”

At some point, Finley began to see a marketing opportunity in all of this. He asked Jackson, of all people, what he thought about having a facial hair-related promotion in June 1972. Jackson was on board, said the clubhouse would be too, and Mustache Day at the Coliseum was born. According to the Oakland Tribune, fans with mustaches accompanied by another fan paying full price could get into the ballpark for free Father’s Day on June 18, 1972.

But in order for mustache mania to take hold, the whole 25-man roster would have to get on board. Coaches and equipment managers would have to get on board. Manager Dick Williams would have to get on board. And Finley — yes, the same Finley who “didn’t spend more than $250 apiece on the 1973 and 1974 World Series rings,” according to Tenace — was willing to shell out $300 to get all A’s staffers to cooperate.

“Word got out that if we grew mustaches he’d give us $300 apiece,” Tenace said. “And we said, shoot, hell, we’d do pretty much anything for $300 back in those days. We’d probably shave our heads.”

“I never got any bonuses — the only thing I ever got was $300 for my mustache,” added Fingers. “There weren’t a whole lot of bonuses Charlie was throwing around.”

At that time, the minimum MLB salary was $13,500 and the average salary was $34,092, which made a $300 bonus hard to pass up. Some players didn’t take to the idea, though, because they didn’t like mustaches or couldn’t grow facial hair quickly. First base coach Jerry Adair and third base coach Irv Noren didn’t partake. Among the players, according to Vucinich, second baseman Larry Brown, first baseman Mike Hegan and starting third baseman Sal Bando held out for a while, until Finley called them into his office and they eventually agreed to participate.

By June 18, all 25 players were mustachioed, bearded or both, with the exception of veteran second baseman Dick Green — who, to his horror, accidentally shaved his off before the game.

“Dick was one of the most frugal, if not the most frugal, person on the team,” Vucinich said. “He said, ‘Oh my God. Oh my God. I’m not going to get my $300,’ but he just played along with it, and nobody said anything. Nobody saw (that he had shaved it off).”

An estimated 7,000 fans were granted free entry to the ballpark on Mustache Day, to watch Vida Blue toss a four-hit shutout against the Cleveland Indians in a 9-0 win. There was an on-field contest, complete with judges, to determine which fan had the supreme ‘stache. Tenace recalls a man with a handlebar mustache that he estimates was “three-feet long.”

“The funny thing is, that might’ve been the greatest promotion (Finley) did in Oakland,” Tenace said. “Because he got all the fans involved in it. You should have seen some of these mustaches some of these men grew. It was impressive. But you also saw a lot of bad mustaches. Because a lot of guys couldn’t grow facial hair.”

Even after the promotion, the majority of the team and coaching staff kept their mustaches. Their hair grew a little bit longer. Some added sideburns, like Epstein’s. And they began to draw more fans, who saw a little bit of themselves in the Mustache Gang.

“We started fitting in with all the long hair, anti-establishment people that lived in the Bay Area,” former A’s left fielder Joe Rudi said in a phone interview last week. “(Dave) Duncan and I didn’t get a haircut for two years. That was just the anti-establishment mentality that we had in the Bay Area. So, the fans actually embraced us after that. They embraced the whole long-hair-versus-the-squares thing.”

A’s color commentator and former catcher Ray Fosse wasn’t a member of the original 1972 Mustache Gang, but he remembers exactly where he was when he first saw those A’s take the field, facial hair and all.

Fosse was playing for the Indians at the time, and returned to his condo with his wife, Carol, after a Saturday afternoon game. He turned on the A’s game and said he was “completely shocked.”

It got him thinking about his own team’s clean-shaven look, and whether those regulations could be relaxed. So, he went to Phil Seghi, who took over as the Indians’ general manager in 1973, and asked whether they could sport mustaches of their own.

Seghi signed off, Fosse embarked on a mustache of his own, and a few weeks later was sent to the A’s as part of a four-player deal.

“When I did start to grow the mustache, I was traded to the A’s with 10 days to go in spring training,” Fosse said in a phone interview last week. “We happened to be playing the Cubs, who were in Scottsdale at the time for spring training at their old stadium, and I hit a triple and Ron Santo was playing third base. I got to third and he said, ‘You knew you were going to be traded to Oakland, didn’t you?’”

Forty-two years later, A’s pitcher Daniel Mengden had a similar experience. He’d been growing a handlebar mustache since his days at Texas A&M, and felt like it “was fate that I was traded to the A’s (in 2015 by the Astros), with all of their facial hair history there.”

Mengden doesn’t wear his mustache the exact same way Fingers — who became known for his signature handlebar mustache — does. He only uses wax on the days he’s starting, a practice that Fingers does not endorse. Mengden also shaves it off once a year, then steadily grows it again.

“Rollie and I actually got into a pretty heated argument at times about that,” Mengden said in a phone interview last Friday. “He’ll always tell me his is way better and I just tell him, ‘Yeah, yours is more old school and mine’s more new school, so I think mine’s better.’”

A’s pitcher Daniel Mengden’s picture from Photo Day today. Thankfully, the Rollie Fingers Handlebar tribute mustache is back. pic.twitter.com/g809VZE7N5

— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) February 23, 2018

“I’ve talked to him about it. It’s a small handlebar. It’s not as big as what I had,” Fingers said of Mengden’s mustache. “I think (those teams) opened up the door for a lot of things, facial hair No. 1 one of them. I mean, after we started growing the mustaches other teams started doing it too. The only teams that didn’t do it were the Yankees and the Reds.

“George Steinbrenner didn’t want anybody having any facial hair and (former Reds owner) Marge Schott didn’t want any of her players to have facial hair. In fact, I could’ve played in 1986 for the Reds, but they wanted me to shave my mustache and I told them I wouldn’t. That’s why I retired.”

With the possible exception of the Yankees (although, even the evil empire allows mustaches every now and then), modern baseball players have more creative freedom than ever before. A’s starter Mike Fiers can wear a … whatever this is. Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon can grow his beard so long that you can’t see his neck.

“I don’t think it’ll ever go back to the way it was then,” Fosse said. “Baseball is trying to promote the game, the way the NBA and the NFL do. I mean, look at (right fielder Yasiel) Puig with his different hair colors, and (Indians shortstop Francisco) Lindor. I mean, players are free to do whatever they want to do.

“If the Reds had won that 1972 World Series, it might’ve been a different story. But the A’s did, and they did it while wearing mustaches, and it took off.”

Unfortunately for Mengden, his individual expression doesn’t come with extra cash.

“Over time we’d hear stories, that they were given a ($300) stipend to grow facial hair,” Mengden said. “I heard they grew some crazy facial hair. I wouldn’t be against it if they ever brought that (stipend) back. If they brought that back, I’d be all for it.”

(1972 file photo of Jackson: Focus on Sport / Getty Images)