John Axford talks facial hair, from Jack Sparrow to Josh Reddick

We had burning questions about baseball, movies, and beards. We needed answers, and we knew there was only one man we could turn to. The man who crushed the Oscars, going 14-for-15 with his picks: Brewers pitcher and self-proclaimed mustache and film aficionado John Axford.

Who has the best beard in baseball right now?

Axford: That's a tough one. You know, I saw a couple pictures from those little photo days that we do, and obviously Jayson Werth looked magnificent with his gigantic beard that he had, and [Josh] Reddick, too. I saw that thing. I think he has like a bet or something going on, does he not? With some WWE wrestler or something?   There's a couple glorious beards going on, that's for sure. No too many mustaches that I've seen. Just a couple wispy ones like Joba Chamberlain's.

I noticed you've had a couple different styles over the years. Where do you get your inspiration about how you're going to grow your facial hair?

I always just mix it up, generally. First year, just happened to be in the minor leagues and you're not allowed to grow your mustache lower than the upper lip, so that's the only reason I had it just up there. After that, I just started mixing it up and thought I'd do a really long fu-man, which I called my chopper, and then after that it was just kind of mixing it up. You know, changing mustache styles last year with the goatee and a different mustache and the fu-man again, and then this year just bearding it up a little bit. I don't know. I can't really declare a full inspiration. It's just whatever I feel, I guess, at the time.

Now if you could have the beard of any movie character, whose would it be?

Ooh. I haven't really thought about that. I don't know. I've thought more about mustaches than I have beards.

Those work, too.

The mustaches, you definitely go with anyone in the old westerns. Obviously everyone that's rocking it in Tombstone looks pretty good, but I'm still going to go with one of the most fierce mustaches out there, which is Daniel Day-Lewis' character in Gangs of New York. That was phenomenal. And he was just a very angry man, so they just worked well together.

Speaking of mustaches, who has the most classic 'stash: Rollie Fingers or Groucho Marx?

[chuckles] That's a tough one, too. You know, if you put both those mustaches up, that's probably what I'd say right away: that's a Groucho 'stache and that's a Rollie 'stache. You know, obviously if you're going film-side, I would say [Groucho's] would probably be the most iconic. You just grab a big old comb and hold it above your lip and everyone kind of knows who it is. And if you get something with a little bit of a handle bar, everyone figures that's a Rollie Fingers style in the baseball world.

Alright. Well I've just got a couple of pictures for you, sort of a who wore it better. Joba Chamberlain, or Super Trooper Rob Farva?

They both look a little scary in that picture, but I think Farva has definitely got the comedic genius behind him also.

And then we've got Reddick and Tom Hanks from Cast Away.

See that, when I first saw Reddick in the outfield, I thought Jayson Werth got traded for a second, and then I realize "oh no, he just grew a mountain man beard also." I gotta go with Tom Hanks on this one. He was doing it on an island, so he didn't have any tools to cut his beard.

And finally we have John Axford and Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparrow.

Once again, I'm going to have to go with the movie. I'm going to have to go with Johnny Depp on that one. I think I was just trying a little too much and I think his worked better because his movies brought in billions of dollars and I only had an okay year.

-- Interview conducted by Nathan Humpherys / Contributor to MLB.com

This post is part of a Cactus League partnership between MLB.com and Arizona State University's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.