as a nonbaseball fan I have a question

[irisblue]

what is up with those beards on the red sox?

[longship]

1. They are channeling their inner ZZTop.

Only without funky guitars.

[irisblue]

3. LOL none that I saw are that long LOL

[longship]

5. Well, they only had one season to grow them.

Give them a break.

[irisblue]

6. they can grow and grow

but why is most/near all of the team growing beards?

[longship]

9. Baseball has always been a superstitious sport.

The best batters hit about 1/3 of the time. When a pitcher has a no-hitter going, the rule is that one does not talk to him in the dugout. Can you think of anything that would be worse than to isolate that guy?

Whats his name from the Giants (Bonds), who took steroids, attributed his record breaking home run season to eating chicken before every game. The fans who held up the asterisk banners in the stands knew it wasn't chicken, unless those chickens were pumped full of steroids.

Alas, the BoSox grew beards this year. It had nothing at all to do with their win. But I don't think you could convince them of it.

I expect ZZTop to take to the field at Boston's Spring training next year.

[aristocles]

2. Do you have an Amish problem?

[irisblue]

4. nope, no issue with Amish, beards....

well some do look better then others...

[Dyedinthewoolliberal]

7. baseball players are notoriously

superstitious. One guy did it, got hot and the rest followed............ sounds good anyhow!

[LeftyMom]

8. They lifted the idea from the Oakland A's.

[TheMightyFavog]

10. Who lifted the idea from Hockey.

Playoff beards have been a thing in the NHL since the 80s I think it was either the Isles dynasty of the early 80s or one of the old Canucks teams that started it off.

[Zorra]

11. The Curse of the Bambino

The Curse of the Bambino was a superstition evolving from the failure of the Boston Red Sox baseball team to win the World Series in the 86-year period from 1918 to 2004. While some fans took the curse seriously, most used the expression in a tongue-in-cheek manner.[1]

This misfortune began after the Red Sox sold Babe Ruth, sometimes called The Bambino, to the New York Yankees in the off-season of 1919–1920.[2] Before that point, the Red Sox had been one of the most successful professional baseball franchises, winning the first World Series and amassing five World Series titles.[3] After the sale they went without a title for decades, as the previously lackluster Yankees became one of the most successful franchises in North American professional sports.[4] The curse became a focal point of the Yankees–Red Sox rivalry over the years.

Talk of the curse as an ongoing phenomenon ended in 2004, when the Red Sox came back from a 0-3 best-of-seven deficit to beat the Yankees in the 2004 American League Championship Series and then went on to sweep the St. Louis Cardinals to win the 2004 World Series.[5] The curse had been such a part of Boston culture that when a "reverse curve" road sign on Longfellow Bridge over the city's busy Storrow Drive was graffited to read "Reverse The Curse",[6] officials left it in place until after the Red Sox won the 2004 Series. After the Red Sox won the last game of the World Series that year, the road sign was edited to read "Curse Reversed" in celebration.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_Bambino

Baseball and superstition are inseparable.

[yewberry]

12. It's partially a Yankees rivalry thing.

A rivalry exists between the NY Yankees and the Red Sox. The Yankees have strict policies about grooming, including rules about hair lengths and no beards. It's very common for Red Sox players to show up with beards or dreads or Jesus-hair. It's a little dig at the Yankees' grooming rules, as they embrace the reputation of being dirt dogs.