Why Oakland A's Pitcher Mike Fiers Played With Unusual Beard

Here's one athlete who's happy to sacrifice vanity for a good belly laugh

There are many ways to keep the attention of fans while on the ball field. 

Apparently, wearing a very weird beard is one of them. 

Meet Oakland A's starter Mike Fiers, who on Saturday night showed up at a road game against the Texas Rangers bedecked in a beard of unusual shape. In fact, it kind of looked like the letter "G." 

Was it a luck thing? Superstition? Did he lose a bet? 

Three strikes! Actually, it was all for the laughs. 

"Just being funny, having fun with these guys," he explained to reporters, according to NBC Sports. "It's a long season, we're in mid-September and just to give the guys a laugh. I'm the kind of guy they want to laugh at, so they dared me to do it or didn't think I'd go out and pitch with it. But I don't care." 

Fiers pitched into the second inning with the beard, but left after experiencing right arm nerve irritation. (This does not appear beard-related.) 

By the time his A's defeated the Rangers, he'd gone clean shaven. 

"I got hurt," he explained about the loss of the "G" beard. "I can't continue that. Just had to shave that off. One-start thing." 

So where did the whole idea come from? Where else — the internet. 

"We were just looking up fun things to do because I was thinking about shaving my beard and starting fresh," he said. "But we were thinking about something funny to do and we were searching on Google for funny beards and that was one of them that came up." 

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