Card Corner--Jerry Reuss

Jerry Reuss--Topps Company--1973 (No. 446)

Hair and mustaches became a cultural subplot during the 1972 major league season. Reggie Jackson of the Oakland A's created a stir when he became the first player to take the field with a mustache in '72, but he wasn't the lone player sporting some facial growth above his lip at the beginning of the season. Jerry Reuss, a young left-handed pitcher with the Cardinals, had also reported to spring training with a newly grown mustache. Little did Reuss know that his grooming decision would result in the end of his Cardinals' career.

No one in St. Louis' front office said anything to Reuss about the mustache, which seemed to be a non-issue, in stark contract to the soap opera in Oakland. A 14-game winner in 1971, Reuss appeared set to take his place in the Cardinals' rotation, right behind Hall of Famer Bob Gibson and the newly acquired Rick Wise (the compensation in the ill-fated Steve Carlton trade). Then, in the middle of spring training, the Cardinals announced another trade, this time with the Houston Astros. Much to his surprise, Reuss discovered that he was the principal figure headed to Houston. Reuss would never again appear in a Cardinal uniform.

For years, Reuss thought he had been traded because of his request for a salary increase in the spring of '72. It wasn't until after his retirement that Reuss found out the true motivation behind the trade. Cardinals owner August "Gussie" Busch so hated Reuss' mustache that he ordered general manager Bing Devine to trade him. Unlike Oakland owner Charlie Finley's handling of the Jackson escapade, Gussie didn't bother to deliver a second-hand message to Reuss, informing him that he had to shave the mustache or else. Deeming Reuss' mustache some kind of baseball sin, Busch banished him to Texas without warning--or a second chance.

Not knowing that the mustache had ignited Busch' temper, Reuss kept his facial hair intact in Houston, as evidenced by his 1973 Topps card, which is shown here. (The mustache is a little bit hard to spot because of Reuss' blonde hair, but it's there.) Reuss made his debut for the Astros on April 19, just four days after Jackson had unveiled his mustache on Opening Day against the Twins.

One other interesting tidbit about Reuss' 1973 card: take note of the zippered jersey the Astros used in the early 1970s. (The zippered jersey worn by the White Sox is evident on Walt Williams' 1973 Topps card. We'll take a look at that card later this season.) Several teams had tried the zippered look in the 1940s, only to discover that the zipper could inflict major damage on a player diving or sliding headfirst. The Astros, along with the White Sox and Phillies in the seventies, apparently didn't learn from the experiment and gave the zipper a second chance in the seventies, only to abandon it quickly. Sometimes it takes several failures to learn a lesson.

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