Facial Hair of Mets' Past and Present: Pat Zachry

Throughout human history, mankind has been fascinated by the hair growing on, around and above our chinny chin chin. For many of us, the fascination has carried over into our love of baseball. There has been a plethora of fantastic beards, 'staches, goatees and mutton chops since Rounders and Cricket evolved into America's grand ol' game. The Mets are no exception, having presented many styles over their 50 years. Born out of my own fascination is the first of an Exploration into the Facial Hair History of the New York Mets.

We will explore all eras of the Orange and Blue. The 70's and 80's will most-assuredly be well-represented.

There are 4 categories in which the awesomeness of the facial hair will be graded: Fullness, styling, length, and creepiness factor. Scores will be given between 1 and 10; "1" being "not awesome at all," "10" being "totally awesome." Creepiness factor will be graded between 0 and 10, with "0" being "not creepy at all" and "10" being "looks like a sex offender." The creepiness grade will be subtracted from the sum of fullness, length and styling. Grading "length" will not be based solely on how long the hair is, rather how the length works in making the beard awesome. "Styling" regards how well the facial hair is kept up. "Fullness" is pretty self-explanatory: the patchier the facial hair, the less points for fullness. The categories will all be graded by how well they compliment each other.  The highest grade facial hair can receive is 30 points.

We begin with arguably the best beard this franchise has had on the Flushing Field: Pat Zachry.

Pat was modest when it came to his facial hair in Cincy. It wasn't till he got to New York that his beard potential was fully realized.  

He began his Mets career as clean shaven as ever...

Then, it was onto the 'stache...

By 1978, his facial hair had grown to epic status. 

Zachry was one of the best pitchers for the Mets during a time when they averaged over 90 losses. Traded from the Reds as part of the Tom Seaver deal, Zachry compiled a 3.63 ERA, appearing in 135 games from 1977-1982, starting 113 and completing 20, 6 of which were shutouts. He won 41 and lost 46, averaging only 123 2/3 innings every year. Had he been healthier, The Metropolitans probably would have won a few more ball games.

"Well, I hope to learn how to control my temper, otherwise it will be a short career." 

--Pat Zachry, Mets Yearbook 1978

He injured his foot in his All-Star season after kicking a helmet on the dugout stairs. The Manager had just taken him out of a game and Pat was upset.


But we're not here to talk about his career. We're here to talk about his awesome beard.

Fullness: Pat Zachry's face has growing strands of hair not more than 1/100th of a millimeter between each other (it's a fact.) The beard clearly wraps around his face from ear to ear, extending all the way from his cheek to his neckline.  He certainly gets a 10 in this category.

Length: At the time of the photo on the right, Zachry must have been growing and maintaining the beard for quite some time. With how full the beard can get, the length only adds to the awesomeness. I raise a 10 card.

Styling: Hard to completely see how groomed the beard is.  If he, like me, can grow it on the upper cheekbone and on parts of his neck (it certainly appears that could be a possibility), then the beard is very well-trimmed. From what we can see, there doesn't appear to be uncut hairs sticking up over the general plane of the beard. He maintains the length very crisply. I'm going an all-out 10 on this one.

Creepiness factor: Too awesome to creep me out. Somebody certainly might disagree, but I subtract no points for creepiness.

Pat Zachry's beard very much deserves the honor of leading off the Mets' Facial Hair History Exploration. He is awarded 30 "awesomeness" points. I'll even go as far to say his beard is awesomeness incarnate.

Pat Zachry...

You and your beard were extremely worthy of wearing the Orange and Blue.

LET'S. GO. METS.

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The Future is Right Around the Corner, But For Now, It Gets Shelled

Matt Harvey pitched for the Mets yesterday and got obliterated in one inning of work, allowing 5 runs on 3 long balls. The Mets lost to the Nationals 0-12. Stephen Strausberg shut them down for 5 scoreless innings. Contrary to what I said yesterday, I'm glad this game wasn't on TV.

The training room continued to receive people through its revolving door when Jason Bay bruised his right forearm on a Hit By Pitch. It's probably not that bad, though. Garret Olson, one of the leading southpaws to replace Tim Byrdak on opening day, also has a bruise, this one on the palm of his left hand suffered from a line drive in a minor league game. Every team has to go through the injury bug (especially the Phillies right now) it just seems to be magnified by the New York media and the Mets recent history.

David Wright, who has been sidelined with an abdominal strain, will start his first Spring game at third today when the Mets take on Cardinals in Jupiter. It's nice to see his name in the line-up. 1-8 is starting to round out. But just in time for Jason Bay's name to be absent.

Anyway, here's RA Dickey.

And to combat how bad the music edited over that was, here's about 11 minutes of Parliament's Flash Light:

Johan Freeses David

I really enjoy turning David Freese's name into puns and will continue to do so. And if we want to be all "logical" about it, Johan didn't "freese" David, since David Freese swung through a Johan Santana change-up twice, and twice lost his bat. I wish I could put up the video I saw on SNY's Sportsnite, but I can't. It was awesomeness. Johan Santana is awesomeness incarnate, and we all hope for his continuing health. The southpaw kept up the march to opening day, pitching 6 innings, giving up 6 singles, and only 1 run in 69 pitches, 49 of those for strikes. Awesomeness. Great storyline of the spring. The Mets B line-up lost to the Cards 1-2, although Jordany Valdespin homered in the 9th inning, a prospect whom the Mets will try in center field on Friday due to Andres Torres' calf strain (along with some others).

Unfortunately, the injury bug also struck one of our youngsters, Zack Wheeler, who sprained his ankle climbing up the stairs. GAAAAAAH!!! It sounds like he will only miss one start, so that's not terrible. We need him to keep developing so he can help us as soon as possible, maybe even September. That would be cool.

The game was not televised, so outside of Johan, I have nothing really to say, so let's just watch some 2011 highlights from The Duda.

Lucas. Duda.

Ike is the man

"the next time anyone asks me about my ankle, I'm gonna go mute and stare at them." 

        --Ike Davis in Starbucks this morning.

 Hahahah, that's awesome.