Beard Shavings -- June 15,2009

Greetings and salutations, faithful readers and Rockies fans! It is I, The Beard, and I welcome you to a long-delayed edition of Beard Shavings! I am sure you are distressed at the fact it has been so long since I have communicated with you, and there is certainly much Rockies-related news to cover, which I will see to very soon. But first, a word of explanation, if I may...

If I'm honest, it's a great lot of fun being an all-seeing, all-knowing Beard with the power and the wherewithal to travel throughout the galaxy at a whim. As an example, let's say you wanted some ice cream from the planet Boob. Yes, there is a planet Boob, and yes, their ice cream is delicious! But you, with your Earth-centric perspective, wouldn't know any of that, would you? And even if you did, you can't do much about it, with your bipedal, earthbound locomotion and all. So while I can eat ice cream on Boob any time I feel like it, you Earthers can only choose between 31 Flavors and Dairy Queen down the street. And not to brag, but most of the time when I show up asking for ice cream at the far corners of the universe, it's on the house. Call it a perk.

So without question, there are some benefits to being me, The Beard. But lately, despite the ability to travel anywhere, do anything, know everything, and eat anything, I've been feeling rather unfulfilled.. lonely, even. I do not think it is a coincidence that right about the time the Rockies were spiraling straight down the loo, I started feeling like something was missing. It's been a while since baseball and Boob and the entire galaxy were not enough, but I must admit that earlier this summer, I got restless. A Restless Beard is a horrible thing to behold, because every time we Beards get restless, we open up a long-closed door in our memories; we rake old coals... we recall the loss of the Beardwives.

It is said that the Beardwives are still somewhere in the universe, but we cannot find them. We have looked everywhere, and there is no sign of them. I fear they are either gone forever, or their intent is to not be found by us. It's our fault, really. As a young race of Mighty Beards, we were just getting into the whole "search the universe and inspire greatness" schtick, and I suppose the Beardwives just weren't that interested in all that. Beardwives take pleasure in simple things: sewing, cooking, destroying worlds, etc., and so after a while, we went to check in on how they were doing, and they had left. They said they'd be back, and they might have even said where they were going... but frankly, I think we Beards were kind of tuning them out at that point. Looking back, I can now admit that basically, we ignored them, took them for granted. Boy, did we blow it.

I did not spend the last few weeks looking for them, however... that would be an excercise in futilty. I just sat around getting drunk and listening to music. I am feeling much better now, but if you see a Beardwife, could you maybe mention me, maybe say something like how sensitive and thoughtful I had been acting lately, and then let me know how she reacts? Thanks.

Now, on to the Rockies. You may have noticed that the Rockies really, really sucked; then Clint Hurdle was fired, and a bunch of people said "firing the manager never works;" and then the Rockies started playing well in every phase of the game, reeled off a bunch of wins, and have themselves close to .500 and in the playoff hunt under Jim Tracy. You will also note that Jim Tracy does not have a beard, while Clint Hurdle sported that little patch on his lower lip... but more on that in just a bit.

From a baseball perspective, this change has been huge. Those of us that saw the latent greatness in this Rockies team are thrilled, as we are finally seeing them playing to their potential. They won't be rattling off 10-game win streaks for the rest of the year, but this is clearly a .500 or better team that was just not being run the right way. But under Tracy, the Rockies are hitting, the rotation has been excellent, and the bullpen has been gritty.

Tracy does a couple obvious things that Hurdle did not: he benches guys who suck, for one thing. Ian Stewart has been looking great this year, and Garret Atkins has been awful. Yet under Hurdle, Atkins kept starting at 3rd and Stewart would get spot starts at all sorts of different positions. But now, Atkins is a bench guy, and Stewart as the regular 3rd baseman is tearing the cover off the ball (and playing great defense, too). This also allows Barmes to be the full-time 2B, as opposed to Hurdle's attempts to cram him, Baker, and Stewart into an awkward three-man platoon at second, when only one of them's really any good there.

Another thing that is already obvious is that Tracy is much better at the in-game management than Hurdle was, particularly with the bullpen. Hurdle's bullpen strategy was to leave a guy (Belisle, more often than not) in until he'd screwed things up royally, and then bring in somebody else to fix it, which never, ever worked. Tracy seems much better at getting a guy out of the game before he loads the bases with nobody out. It's the little things that make all the difference!

Something less obvious is the overall approach the team seems to have. They seem happy, which they did not appear to be under Hurdle. I know that winning makes happy players, but I have to wonder if it's something else. Hurdle had a reputation as a player's manager, but it could be that things behind closed doors were very different. My gut feeling is that Hurdle is a great guy to be around when little is expected from him, but when expectations are put on his shoulders, he becomes a different guy. Different enough, anyway, to explain last year's total implosion and this year's terrible start. Some guys crack under the pressure of success, and perhaps Hurdle was one of those guys.

But now, the true factor involved here may finally be revealed. You won't read this in any of the print media, for this is knowledge that only you, the readers of this feature, can hope to understand. I did not want to say anything while Hurdle was a member of the team, didn't want to cause any ripples that would become waves... but the "soul patch" is not a beard. I repeat: any suggestion that the "soul patch" is, in any way, related to The Race of Eternal Beards or shares our goal of instilling greatness in others is a lie.

The tuft does not imply greatness of any sort. In fact, the "soul patch," as it demands to be called, is actually my arch-enemy, the arch-enemy of all that is Beardly! If there is a force for good in the universe, there is also a force for evil. That evil is embodied by the narrow tuft of facial hair that you so readily call the "soul patch." Consider the following:




Some of the most terrible things in your history are associated with the one-inch wide tuft of facial hair. As soon as Hurdle revealed it, I got an empty feeling, and I knew that it was only a matter of time before things came to pieces. Even when the evil tuft was not on his face, I could tell it was in his heart. He had fallen to the evil power, and there was little I could do. I could have stepped in, I suppose, but I didn't think the Colorado Rockies' dugout was a the right place for a no holds barred cage match between galactic forces of good and evil, with the very fate of the universe on the line. So I let it play out, and for the effects which that decision had on the Rockies, I sincerely apologize.

So now, Rockies fans, enjoy the summer! There is hope once again! Whether the Rockies will contend, I do not know, but they are fun to watch once again, and that is the first step towards greatness. May the peace and ice cream of the galaxy be upon you,


The Beard