Feb 08 2019 10:31 PM
I don't know if recent Mets spring training invitee Danny Espinosa has anything left, but in his prime, that guy could produce testosterone like nobody's business. While the second decade of the 21st century has really brought the beard back into baseball vogue, Danny has had a special advantage, as he grew facial hair where nobody else did.
Look at that guy! You know that somebody's yelling at him that he was supposed to shave on picture day, and he's all "I did!" It's like he's almost got stubble coming out of his eye sockets. It's almost like Joe Torre and Josh Satin decided to have a baby.
So hirsute was Espinosa that you could actually see the hair growing during the course of a game. here he is at the end of a hot July doubleheader.
I don't care where you're from. I don't care what team you root for. I don't even care if you like beards or not. You have to admit, the utter fullness here defies what you thought were the rules of beardliness. Had a couple of days of rain? You can ask Danny to take that shit down to the basement and mop up!
Please note that, at the time, this was actually Danny's trimmed look. Even when intentionally growing the beard out, Dandy Man made a point of shaving the impossibly high patches where mere mortal men have no hair at all.
At odds with his manager one spring, Danny agreed to cut back on the forest. Did he come out of his visit to the barber shop silky and smooth like a baby's bottom? You can rest assured that he did NOT! Instead, he carved that mother down to the most glorious fu manchu to appear in the majors since the 19th century, and maybe ever.
That's the way to strain your beer.
At his best, Danny was a three-true-outcomes player: Lots of power for a middle infielder, a pretty fair share of walks, a prodigious ton of strikeouts, and a batting average that elicited derision. As I said above, I don't know what he has left, but if he joins the team at all this year, I look forward to a special variation on the hidden-ball trick.`