Rice’s successful Hall of Fame argument owed a lot to his reputation as the “most feared hitter in the game” during his prime. He clocked 382 home runs and won the 1978 AL MVP award, but Rice’s ferocious mustache game was clearly the source of the fear. Rice rocked the ‘stache his entire career, right up to the 1990 Topps card pictured above (where he looks a little more like someone’s grandpa than a fearsome slugger), issued the year after he hung it up.
Rice stuck around the Sox as a coach over the following decade-plus, occasionally going over to the goatee. You can find Rice on NESN telecasts nowadays, sometimes alongside former teammate Eckersley in a one-two punch of Hall of Fame soup strainers.