Reminder: Koji Uehara has not always been beardless

You're probably familiar at this point with the Red Sox and their apparent aversion to razors. So many Boston players have grown beards that it's a challenge to identify all of them based on the nuances of their individual facial hair stylings.

Being cleanshaven on this team is unusual. Xander Bogaerts is, and that might be because he can't yet grow one. Another smooth-faced exception is ALCS MVP Koji Uehara. Is the closer another for whom facial hair is simply not a biological possibility?

Quite the contrary, as a matter of fact. Uehara had a beard at both his previous MLB stops, in Baltimore and Texas, and stretching back to his time playing for Japan's Yomiuri Giants, too. He told the New York Times that he initially grew his beard to stand out from his mostly beardless Yomiuri teammates. And now? "If I had a beard now, I would not stand out."