The Boston Red Sox are now World Series champions after defeating the St. Louis Cardinals on Wednesday night at Fenway Park and one thing that all the players had in common for Boston was their bushy beards.
Dustin Pedroia, David Ortiz, Mike Napoli, Jonny Gomes and Jacoby Ellsbury as well as others had the beards going and clearly the tugging gave them some good luck and something to rally around, as they are now World Series champions. Here is a little flashback article to the beards from the World Series in honor of the championship for the Red Sox:
The Boston Red Sox have pulled off one of the biggest turnarounds in history after losing 93 games last season and winning 97 this year while winning the American League East title and now they will host game 2 of the World Series up 1-0 on Thursday night and everyone will know which team is which by the beards.
Sure, some Cardinals have some facial hair, but it's nothing like the Fenway Park boys, as the Red Sox have a number of massive beards that have been growing all season and all the playoffs. The beards seemingly got started by Dustin Pedroia and Mike Napoli earlier in the season, but clearly it caught on and now players like David Ortiz, David Ross and Mike Carp as well as Ryan Dempster and Jarrod Saltalamacchia all have long beards that look like they are straight out of "Duck Dynasty".
Now the team is in the World Series and it has been on the strength of the lineup, bullpen and strong starting pitching and now it will be a rematch of the 2004 World Series between the two teams. The Red Sox won that series in a sweep of four games after defeating the Yankees in one of the most dramatic comebacks ever and now they will fight each other again. The only players left from those teams are David Ortiz and Yadier Molina, the elder statesmen of the Red Sox and Cards.
The Game 1 matchup will be Adam Wainwright and Jon Lester and that should be a fantastic showdown and after that will be rookie Michael Wacha and John Lackey going head to head. Wacha has been lights out this playoffs and according to ESPN.com, he is the first rookie to pitch two scoreless starts in on series in baseball history. Wacha was pitching in college last year for the Texas A&M Aggies and now he will be on the mound for Game 2 of the World Series.
Following the first two games will be Clay Buchholz taking on Joe Kelly and then Jake Peavy and Lance Lynn will go at it and each of those two matchups feature pitchers that won at least 10 games. The Cardinals have some facial hair too, including John Axford, but it's nothing compared to what the Red Sox have. Jacoby Ellsbury has got himself a beard going as well and the team has been boosted by having young stud Xander Bogaerts in the lineup with Will Middlebrooks struggling. The team will have some questions about what to do with the DH spot when they play in the NL park, but they have two games.