Adam Morrison's mustache doesn't quite measure up

	Rollie Fingers owns the best sports mustache of modern times. Jed Jacobsohn/Getty Images

If you've been trying to figure out what sets Adam Morrison apart from his peers in college hoops, the answer is right under your nose. Make that under his nose.

Morrison's wispy attempt at a Fu Manchu might be the most noticeable bit of facial hair in sports right now. But when you put him up against the all-time greats, he falls short.

Some athletes can pull off the 'stache -- specifically the ones from the 1970s and '80s, when mustaches were actually in style. From Keith Hernandez (good) to pre-steroids Barry Bonds (bad, in an El DeBarge sort of way) to Goose Gossage (scary), the very least I can do for poor, misguided Morrison is try to separate the wheat from the chafing. After all, there's a thin line between a good mustache and a bad one. Like the thin line on Ted Turner's face. (Guess which side that falls on.)

Any discussion of sports mustaches must begin with lip-carpet pioneer Reggie Jackson, whose mustache is included in the bronze version of him that hangs in Cooperstown.

Jackson famously claimed to be the straw that stirred the drink, which is good, because without a straw the drink would have ended up all over his mustache. Before Jackson opened the 1972 season with a furry lip, the last player documented as having sported a mustache during a regular-season game was Philadelphia's Wally Schang in 1914. I don't know what Schang's mustache looked like, but it couldn't have been good if it led to almost 60 years of clean shaves throughout the league. Every picture I could find of the guy was mustache-free, which I think says a lot. But I digress.

Before Jackson stopped shaving, several teams had policies banning facial hair. I get why having a stiff upper lip might make you a better player, but a smooth upper lip? Call me crazy, but I think the front offices should be more concerned with making their players better than making them better-looking.

Some teams still have ridiculous pro-skin policies, the most nonsensical belonging to the Mets. Manager Willie Randolph's strict facial-hair ban includes the bizarre exception of allowing mustaches. Fortunately, backup infielder Jose Valentin seems to be the only player taking advantage of the loophole.

Of course, Randolph is a softy compared to the late Marge Schott, whose Cincinnati Reds had a long-standing grooming policy so strict that if you wanted to grow a mustache, you had to pretty much own the team. But Schott made that 'stache look good, bless her heart. I'm just kidding, of course. It didn't really look good.

The Oakland A's had a mustache ban until it backfired monumentally, thanks to Mr. October. Rather than tell Jackson to shave in 1972, nutty A's owner Charlie Finley told some of the other players to stop shaving, figuring that Reggie would give up the mustache once it didn't set him apart. But after a while Finley decided he liked the new look and offered $300 to every player who could grow a mustache in time for a Father's Day promotion that included letting anyone with a mustache into the game for free.