moustaches: "miniature baseball nines"

[Cohen, Gerald Leonard]

Bill Mullins asks:
        "Miniature baseball nines??? What is the allusion?"

        ***
I suppose it has something to do with the many 19th century baseball players who sported moustaches.

Gerald Cohen

> ----------
> From:         American Dialect Society on behalf of Mullins, Bill
> Sent:         Monday, December 13, 2004 4:44 PM
> To:   ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:           moustache
>
>  From _The Tiger Claw_, yearbook of the class of 1929, The University High School, Columbia MO, p. 73
>
> From a description of attending a dance:
>
> "The moustache was what made the hit with the girls.  Now, if you want to be a mean, you can ask if it got in the way while it was making the hit, but that wasn't what I meant.  I always have wondered why men wore those
> miniature baseball nines on their upper lips.  But when I saw how the girls liked to "fix" mine, I understood."
>
> Miniature baseball nines??? What is the allusion?
>
>
>