Lip service to Pavano

Carl Pavano puts the "ace" in the phrase, "What's that on your face?"

As the Twins' promising young pitchers have floundered, Pavano and his newly-grown, occasionally-mown mustache have become symbols of pitching excellence and grooming negligence.

It is a problematic fad, akin to idolizing Prince. Just because you admire a guy doesn't mean you should wear purple sequins and high heels.

Pavano's buddies want to be like him. They do not want to look like him.

"Oh, God, no," shortstop J.J. Hardy said.

I conducted a highly formal survey of Twins who have grown facial hair while Pavano has become the Twins' ace, asking the question, "If Pavano keeps pitching like this ..."

"Then I'm sure he'll keep wearing that mustache," Michael Cuddyer said, stroking his half-grown goatee. "Mine has nothing to do with performance. I just get tired of seeing the same guy in the mirror every day."

"If we win 20 in a row and he keeps pitching like this," said Nick Punto, "then I'd grow a woolly beard."

Which would provide cushioning when he dives into first.

"I'd be tempted to grow mine back," said Brian Duensing, who shaved his lame attempt at a Pavano 'stache on Monday morning. "I just looked so ridiculous. I can't get up and brush my teeth in the morning and take myself seriously when you see that on your face."

Most baseball superstitions sweep clubhouses like foot fungus. Ballplayers will do anything to get their next hit or win. Anything, it turns out, except for looking like Pavano.

"I guess I'd do it if the whole team did it," said Hardy, who wears a beard without a mustache. "But, God, I hope the team doesn't decide to do it.

Outfielder Jason Kubel, who wears a full beard "because I'd look 12 years old if I didn't," admires Pavano but can't imagine imitating him. "This is as far as I go," he said. "I mean, I guess if everybody else was doing it, I'd try it. But you've got to know your limits."

The P-'stache-io appeared in late May or early June (sorry, baseball-reference.com did not list the date Pavano initially stopped shaving) and became the No. 2 conversation starter among fans, right behind the question: "Why don't the Twins fire everyone?"

Pavano is 8-2 since May 23 and, in a clubhouse that can be tense and humorless, he's become the team's best pitcher and comedian. I cornered him in the clubhouse Tuesday, and I haven't talked this much about a ballplayer's hair since Marty Cordova took his hairdryer to Toronto.

"I don't have to groom it much," Pavano said. "I just trim it every couple of weeks. It's my nose hairs that need trimming. They're longer than my mustache. You need to take advantage of them."

I was afraid he was going to start telling me about his waxing habits, when he explained why he would wear the Groucho-Marx-without-the-glasses look.

Pavano's mustache is like Samson's hair, if Samson had wanted to go into porn.

"I think guys are having fun with it," Pavano said. "But it's a choice. We all have choices."

Backup catcher Drew Butera is trying, but he just looks like an extra from Miami Vice. Punto tried to grow one over the All-Star break, but when the Twins lost their first game back against Chicago, he said, "That was that. It didn't really look very good, anyway."

Reliever Matt Guerrier is the biggest fan of the P-'stache-io, but as a recruiter he rivals Dan Monson. "I was hoping it would catch on with more guys, and it really didn't," he said. "I had a week where I wasn't getting outs, so I figured, why not try something different?

"It's something to change things up. It's in fun. Hopefully it catches on. I was hoping we'd keep winning, and then more guys would be like, 'Oh, well, I've just got to wear it even if it looks terrible.' But Duensing is obviously scared of the 'stache."