Evil comes in many forms. Dictators and vampires are evil. Gopher fans are close. Yet, there is one form of evil so disgusting, so haunting and so harrowing that even those hurt by it, are too fearful to speak up against it. The evil I speak of most likely sits in his huge leather throne, lighting his cigars and chuckling as his malevolence seeps through a metropolis.
George Steinbrenner is evil— but not for the reasons you're used to hearing.
His quick trigger with his staff has been tempered in the last decade or so, but that doesn't even bother me.
His money-bags mentality fails to trouble me as well, as few owners with similar funding put their teams on a competitive level. And as Frank Costanza pointed out in Seinfeld when he screamed, ""How could you trade [Jay] Buhner!"" Steinbrenner's eye for talent in the ‘80s and early ‘90s wasn't great, but he allows his baseball people to make more decisions now, so Yankee fans can't even hate the guy.
What really aggravates me is what he did to one man—Sal Fasano—because even the die-hard baseball fan might not know.
Fasano is a career backup catcher. He has played for seven teams in nine seasons. He is a career .223 hitter, who has played, at most, 74 games in one year. He has hit fewer home runs in his career than four players have hit this season, and five more are well on their way to passing his mark.
But Sal had something. Something that no other player had. Salvatore Frank Fasano of Chicago, Ill., was the last baseball player with a Fu Manchu.
For those who don't know what a Fu Manchu is, I'm sorry, but you're missing out. I guess you could call the Fu Manchu a mustache, but doing so would be performing an injustice to Fu Manchus everywhere.
The Fu Manchu is a mustache with aspirations. It is the Christopher Columbus of mustaches. It knows there are parts of the facial plane yet to be discovered by mustaches and it sets out on its journey to do just that, making mustaches everywhere proud. Yet, for a Fu Manchu to be a Fu Manchu there mustn't be any facial hair surrounding it. It has to be alone in its journey.
In the ‘70s and ‘80s, the style was popular amongst baseball players. Milwaukee's own ‘75 Brew Crew was said to have the most Fu Manchus on one team (7), with Robin Yount leading the way. Rumor has it that ""Le Grande Orange"" Rusty Staub was traded from the Astros to the Expos in 1968 because of his Fu Manchu.
But Sal Fasano stayed strong. The fashion trend had been long gone, but did he care? No. Fasano was a rebel, like those who still play with Pogs. He even was rewarded with his own fan group, Sal's Pals, who sported fake Fu Manchus to the games.
When Sal was picked up by the Yankees, Sal's Pals were probably booking their flights from Philly to New York. However, while caught up in the intriguing facial hair anomaly, America forgot about something: Steinbrenner hates facial hair.
It didn't bother me when Jason Giambi was forced to cut down on his wild man image (I don't get worked up about juiced up award hoarders who apologize after they're caught). It didn't bother me when Johnny Damon got a major trim (I don't like traitors much either). But what happened to Sal is inexcusable.
Let me put it to you this way. Would you be upset if a money- hungry poacher killed the endangered Iberian Lynx? Or how about the Wild Bactrian Camel? I won't even ask you about the Chinese Paddlefish, because I already know how you feel about that.
This is no different. The speckle of hair that remains above Sal's lip simply doesn't cut it. The great English philosopher John Locke once said, ""But there is only one thing which gathers people into seditious commotion, and that is oppression.""
We need to take action, and we need to do it fast. We must band together and do whatever it takes to take down this reign of terror.
Don't do it for me. Don't even do it for Sal. Do it for that little boy sitting in front of his television, eating apple pie, watching our nation's pastime. The boy, putting his fingers to his face, wonders if his mustache will ever grow like Sal's.
Because without dreamers like Sal Fasano, where would America be?
To start a petition to bring back Sal Fasano's mustache, contact Sam at sepepper@wisc.edu.
