One-on-One: Who had baseball’s best facial hair in 2008?

If he could walk up to the plate wearing green overalls, a red and black checkered shirt and carrying a small axe, Kevin Youkilis would be in heaven.

Unfortunately for the ginger-bearded journeyman, there isn’t going be to an expansion team called the Montana Lumberjacks any time soon.

“Yook,” as the Bostonians graciously call him, sports the best facial hair in baseball without question. The beard competes with the likes of jolly ol’ St. Nick, which by the way is going to be his profession once he hangs up the overalls – I mean baseball pants.

As the elves in the North Pole lick their chops for the furry nest growing on his face that will be theirs one day, the baseball world should rejoice in having a player who can have a full grown beard but be bald on top without looking like an idiot.

Imagine Vin Diesel with a beard – it looks dumb. Only the man who frolics to first base when he gets walked so his marvelous beard can flop back and forth like it’s on Baywatch can pull this facial feature off.

Congratulations Kevin Youkilis. You are a lumberjacking enigma.

I remain completely confident in stating the fact that Jason Giambi’s facial hair was not only the best in baseball, but quite possibly the best of the universe this past year.

Let’s not beat around the bush here, it takes a bold man and a strong upper-lip to sport the 1982 baseball mustache these days, but Giambi pulled it off flawlessly.

Not since closer Rod Beck has major league baseball seen as healthy a facial farm as the 2008 Giambi masterpiece. Second only to 1977 Burt Reynolds for “D.J.’s Best Mustaches of All Time,” Giambi’s facial hair even united the meanest fans in baseball for a short time (at least until they realized their $207 million team was going to lose the AL East to the Rays).

In the construction phase of Giambi’s mustache, he noted that he was trying to model himself after Yankee great Don Mattingly, but just choosing an all-American mustache over a grotesque beard says a lot about the man as well.

Famous people with mustaches include upstanding citizens like Teddy Roosevelt, Martin Luther King, Jr. and Ned Flanders.

Famous people with beards – Osama bin Laden and Fidel Castro. Giambi’s mustache is good for America.