You know, we all love the facial hair on the Phillies, but do we really know why? I may have found part of the answer yesterday, with this handy dandy chart on the "Trustworthiness of Beards." Maybe just having some kind of facial hair makes us feel a certain way about a player, or perhaps the player has a certain type of facial hair to instill a certain feeling in his opponents. Let's explore it now.
Here you have your "very trustworthy" facial hair:
So I guess that Eric Bruntlett was somewhere between Philosopher and Full Beard - so very trustworthy, not threatening at all, just a good dude with a beard who turns unassisted triple plays.
But what about Jayson Werth. Untill this year, he was rocking the "landing strip" which, according to the chart, is only threatening:
Now, here is where it gets a bit tricky, how would you classify Werth's beard now? Is it a werewolf (because of the length of his actual hair too?).
If we go with werewolf, then Jayson has gone from threatening to DANGEROUS -as shown here:
So maybe Jayson came to camp this year really wanting to be more than just a threat against the opposing team, and to really make the point, he grows all the hair out - to put in the subconscious of the opponents that he is indeed, DANGEROUS.
How do other Phillies facial hairs stand up to the chart? Well, here is Chase on Opening Day:
Chase was rocking a bit of a soul patch, so Chase = Threatening.
And here is Roy Halladay at the Phillies home opener - full beard. Roy = Very Trustworthy
Here's the whole chart (or go to the website to see it in more detail) so you can asses the threat levels of beards on your own:
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