Once again, reader, we find that Great Moments in Spectacles and our industry-standard Mustache Watch come together in a single shining beacon of masculine masculinity.

The gentleman you see in these (very) collectible trading cards is ex-baseball pitcher Fred Breining, notable not only for posting consecutive two-win seasons in the early 1980s but for possessing a surname that’s also a gerund.

In the left-most photo, Breining models for us the Spectacles/Mustache Package Deal that’s captured our attention of late. Of the right-most photo, reader and muscled philosopher Joe P. makes this observation:

Adding to the glory of Fred Breining’s spectacles here is the “Oh, hey, I didn’t see you there” look on his face, as if we’ve interrupted his afternoon of reading Proust at the ballpark.

If nothing else, reader, you’ll have to agree that these images of Breining represent for us that singular pleasure provided by the remembrance of things past.

Denton True “Cy” Young was a great pitcher …

Denton True “Cy” Young was also a great mustachioed pitcher. Denton True “Cy” Young was also a great chinless pitcher. And, as Venn Diagrams teach us, Denton True “Cy” Young was also a great mustachioed, chinless pitcher. So a little respect, please.

Ahem:

And I believe we have a winner. That is, unless you know of someone else in the world of baseball who boasts a tickler the size of an oak limb.

You’re damned right I’d follow Billy Martin’s mustache, and his spectacles, into the heat of baseball battle.

Adding to Martin’s lore: Whiskey Slick, his nickname, according to Baseball Almanac. And Whiskey Slick loved an old fashioned fracas, or ten, I learned, after going down the rabbit hole that is Billy Martin’s Wikipedia entry.

Witness:

Martin was well known for drinking to excess and for rowdy behavior when drinking. In 1957, a group of Yankees met at the famous Copacabana nightclub to celebrate Martin’s 29th birthday; the party ultimately erupted into a much publicized brawl when Martin, Hank Bauer, Mickey Mantle and Yogi Berra challenged a few drunks who were hurling racial slurs at performer Sammy Davis, Jr. A month later, general manager George Weiss—believing Martin’s nightlife was a bad influence on teammates Whitey Ford and Mickey Mantle—exiled him to Kansas City. Martin felt betrayed by Stengel, with whom he had a strong father-son relationship, for failing to prevent the trade, and the two did not speak for years.

Exile in Kansas City. The more things change …

A few years later:

On August 4, 1960, Martin, then playing for the Reds, charged the mound in the second inning after receiving a brushback pitch from Chicago Cubs pitcher Jim Brewer. Martin threw his bat at Brewer, who picked up the bat and started to hand it to Martin as he approached. Martin punched Brewer in the right eye, breaking his cheekbone. Brewer was hospitalized for two months, and Martin served a five-day suspension. The Cubs sued Martin for $1,000,000 ($7,416,009 as of 2011), for the loss of Brewer’s services. While the Cubs dropped their case, Brewer pursued his, and in 1969, a judge ordered Martin to pay $10,000 ($59,909 as of 2011), in damages. When informed of the judgment by the press, he asked sarcastically, “How do they want it? Cash or check?”

Martin’s fights as a player also included bouts with Jimmy Piersall, Clint Courtney (twice), Matt Batts and Tommy Lasorda.

There’s no way you can convince me that Martin didn’t pay his fine in cash.

There’s more:

In 1969, Martin’s only season as manager of the Twins, he won a division championship. He was fired after the season following an August 1969 fight in Detroit with one of his pitchers, Dave Boswell, in an alley outside the legendary Lindell A.C. bar.

Ten years later, Martin hadn’t mellowed:

After the 1979 season, Martin got into a fight with marshmallow salesman Joseph Cooper at a hotel in Minneapolis.

Marshmallow salesmen are the worst.

Moving on:

On September 22, 1985, while at a hotel bar in Baltimore, Maryland, Martin fought one of his pitchers, Ed Whitson, who broke one of Martin’s arms.

And here I thought the 2006 scuffle between then Toronto Blue Jays manager John Gibbons and Ted Lilly was the stuff of dreams.

Finally:

Martin’s sparring opponents as a manager also included two traveling secretaries (Minnesota’s Howard Fox and Texas’ Burt Hawkins) in a fight outside of Howard Wong’s in Bloomington, Minnesota; Jack Sears, a fan outside Tiger Stadium; a Chicago cab driver who preferred soccer to baseball; sportswriter Ray Hagar, in a Reno indoor arena bar; … two bar patrons, in Anaheim and in Baltimore; and two bouncers in an Arlington topless bar.

I shudder to think what might have become of a marshmallow salesman who moonlighted as a cab driver, and who preferred the beautiful game to baseball, had he crossed Billy Martin’s path.

Interesting cat, Billy Martin, to say the least. And I had no idea.

Image courtesy Baseball Almanac, “Where what happened yesterday is being preserved today.” They ain’t foolin’.

The learned reader will likely be aware that, as part of our ongoing effort to become the new face of masculinity, we at NotGraphs have slowly but surely taken to cataloging the very best both of mustache- and spectacle-wearing from baseball past and present.

Accordingly, it makes sense that we would be interested in those rare cases where mustaches and spectacles — like two hypothetical trains in an elementary logic problem — meet at a single point.

Thanks to the giant knowledge of reader/commenter/shoulder-brusher-offer Yirmyahu (during today’s occasionally meandering, ever insightful NotGraphs Chat) we are now treated to such a meeting in the person of former major-leaguer Lee Tunnell.

A brief tour of Tunnell’s player page reveals that he was just a moderately successful swingman over parts of six seasons in the 1980s. His life achievements very clearly don’t end there, however.

Image courtesy of Topps via The Baseball Cube.

That beautiful mustachioed gentleman you see there is Mr. Josh Collmenter, circa July 2008. If Mr. Collmenter’s name sounds familiar, it’s either because (a) you read about his unique pitching delivery in these pages last November, (b) you read about his recent promotion two days ago at our buttoned-up parent site, or (c) it just sounds like a pretty normal American name. (Please note: those are the only three possible ways you’ve ever heard Josh Collmenter’s name. Don’t even start pretending like there’s some fourth way or something. That’s ridiculous.)

Being the sort of person who’s paid handsomely just to sit at home and amuse himself, I was watching this afternoon’s contest between Collmenter’s Diamondbacks and the Cardinals of St . Louis when broadcaster Matt Vasgersian made reference to a promotion in which Collmenter had played a major role while a minor-leaguer with the Sound Bend Silver Hawks — a promotion called Mustache Appreciation Night.

Let me repeat that in red Comic Sans just case you’re impaired in one way or another. What I said was:

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It never would have occurred to me that Jim Thome could’ve made a nifty Paul Bunyan, but that’s mostly because no one ever asked me, “Dayn, do you think Jim Thome could make a nifty Paul Bunyan?”

Had someone posed that question — and, really, I’m not sure why no one has — I would have said, “Yes, yes, now that I think about it, I do believe that Jim Thome could make a nifty Paul Bunyan.”

Turns out my instincts, as always, were spot-on …

Yeah, Brian Wilson’s two-seamer (featured below!) is impressive enough, and I can forgive his reluctance to brawl with randomly outraged A’s fans. What I shall not abide is if Mr. Wilson and his face-forest duck out on this:

The Second Annual $5000 Beard Team USA National Beard and Moustache Championships will take place on October 8, 2011 at the Clipper Magazine Stadium, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

That’s right, Wilson: The Second Annual $5000 Beard Team USA National Beard and Moustache Championships. You know it’s serious because “Beard” is mentioned twice. You know it’s for the discriminating gentleman because “Moustache” is spelled with an “ou,” which is, of course, the preferred spelling of the hardy and right-wise.

Oh sure, it’s possible Mr. Wilson’s team will have something of the postseason-ish flavoring scheduled for October 8, but I see no reason he can’t take a cue from baseball legend Deion Sanders and be hustled by giant flying machine from one event to the other.

Wilson, your beard may be baseball’s best (at least now that Bo Diaz is no longer with us), but can it stack up with the likes of Devin Cara, who is pictured above and surely pleases the crumbled bones of Aaron Burr?

So, Wilson, is that a beard on your mug or a gathering of tiny, hairlike cowards? We’ll find out on October 8.

There are certain situations into which we’re thrust in this life that cause us to take stock of things, reassess our understanding of the world, and ask the big questions.

For example, the high-school senior, upon getting accepted to multiple universities, must wonder, “Do I follow my sweetheart to X, or forge my own way at Y?” Alternatively, while on a cross-country flight, one is sometimes forced to ask — at least once in his life — “Is it objectively worse to end my own life, or the life of this spoilt child?”

Without taking too many liberties, I believe we can safely conclude that reader Michael is currently experiencing one of these existential episodes.

For it’s in a recent email to Team NotGraphs’ Hot Hotline that Michael wrote the following, under the subject “Mustache for Your Consideration”:

Not sure if you’ve covered this one yet, but one MLB mustache that’s been bothering me is the one sported by new Seattle manager Eric Wedge. I’m a Cleveland fan, so know Wedge from his (mustache-free) days there, so it’s kind of compelling that he’s launched his career in Seattle with this rakish Stacy Keach-style number.

For reference, I’ve included below pictures of both the Cleveland-era Wedge and Stacy Keach. Good luck telling them apart!

Allow me to preface this piece of investigative reporting with the following video, anonymously submitted to the Mustache Watch hotline. The accompanying message simply said: “Keep digging.”

Naturally, I was intrigued, so I complied and began looking into it, trying to find what the video meant and where it came from. What started out as a curiosity, though quickly turned into a high-stakes struggle between life and death.

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