Pop culture loves the mustache.  Chuck Norris.  Tom Selleck.  Charlie Chaplain. Really bad men who shall not be named here.  The lip sweater, generally speaking, is well recognized by American society, and the Redbirds are contributing to its fame.  Heavily.  Back up catcher, Jason LaRue, has long sported his trademark handlebar (and mullet, God love him), but so far this season at least seven of LaRue’s teammates have hopped on the ‘stache train, including Rick Ankiel, Adam Wainwright, Skip Schumaker and Chris Carpenter.  Colby Rasmus (my vote for rookie of the year) is doing his best to match his mustache power to his home run hitting power.  As the season has hummed along, more and more Cardinals are showing up to play sporting a mustache, and I think I may know why.

The obvious answer for Le Mustache Movement is superstition.  Baseball players are widely known to be extremely superstitious creatures of habit.  Most players don’t step on the chalk foul lines.  You’ll see players refuse to change their hats, leaving some prime sweat stains visible for all.  You’ll hear of guys wearing the same socks, but thankfully the results are much less visible.  Yadier Molina kisses the glove and ball pendant on his necklace, given to him by his late father, before every pitch.  Skip Schumaker steps out of the batter’s box, unhooks the Velcro straps of his batting gloves, then rehooks them before getting back into the batting box.  This is between every single pitch.  He’s said in interviews it was a focusing device his father taught him to keep his thoughts on making good contact at the plate.  Then, of course, there’s the extreme in Turk Wendell.  Wendell, a relief pitcher from 1993-2004, had a slew of eccentric superstitions. He chewed licorice while pitching and brushed his teeth in between every inning.  When his catcher stood behind home plate, Wendell squatted on the mound.  And my personal favorite, Wendell would not pitch until his center fielder waved to him.  All of these superstitious ceremonies are performed by ball players because they have convinced themselves that without the superstitions they will perform poorly and ultimately be responsible for their team’s loss.

While I do think there is a good chance that the mustache fever could not be linked to clubhouse-wide superstition, here are other potential reasons for the mustache madness:

1. The Cardinals players are planning a 70′s party during the All Star break and growing a stache is the best RSVP method.
2. Any player with a mustache is mad at their wife/girlfriend.
3. They may be considering auditioning to be extras in an upcoming film where molestaches are required facial hair.
4. The players are channeling the power of the stache from Goose in Top Gun. 
5. Distraction by means of ludicrous facial hair (this would also include Franklin’s civil war general’s beard). 

What do you think?  Is superstition responsible for the Cardinals’ Mo\ustache Movement, or is there just some extra time for the players to be working on their facial hair art?