Jayson Werth’s Beard Receives Internet Funeral

I’m not sure if you’ve been following the facial transformation of Phillies right fielder Jayson Werth this spring, but it’s been nothing short of amazing. Let’s be honest, Werth is a good looking dude – some might say strapping, even – so when he showed up at spring training with a full-on Grizzly Adams, it made some news. Well, a lot of news. It was a trending topic on Twitter in Philadelphia for what seemed like a month. Media people tried to get comments about the beard, but Werth wouldn’t bite. Nobody thought Werth would get through the entire spring with the beard still in tact. Heck, most people thought he was just doing it as a gag for photo day. But the beard lasted far longer. The legend grew.↵↵The only problem: it wasn’t working. Werth is hitting a paltry .170 this spring and has 14 strikeouts in 47 at bats. He is slugging .298 on the spring. It’s time for a change, and the only thing that seems different about Werth from his stellar season in 2009 is, well, the beard. It had to go.↵

↵↵And go it did. First, Phillies beat writer Matt Gelb tweeted that the beard had been shaved. Then Todd Zolecki posted a photo of a freshly-shaven Werth on his site. The Twitter outpouring has been monumental. If you’re reading this and thinking ‘so what, it was just a beard,’ I’m not sure you understand anything about Philly, baseball, or, well, anything. I’ll make the case that, in its short life, it’s the third-best beard in Phillies history behind Bake McBride and Steve Bedrosian. See, it’s too hard to believe it’s gone, I’m still referring to it in the present tense.↵

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↵↵Personally, I would have gone with “Yesterday” as my musical tribute, but both are fine selections.↵

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