moustache

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>  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?

"Baseball nine" should mean "baseball team".

Why "mustache" = "miniature baseball team"? Here is my wag (i.e., wild
guess). The reference is to young dudes (high school students apparently).
Some of us young dudes have rather sparse mustaches at first. I suppose
there was a joke (either a conventional one or an in-joke among those
particular students) along the lines of "Your new mustache is like a
miniature baseball team: nine men [i.e., hairs], one over in left field,
one in right field, ...."

-- Doug Wilson