this guy damn near cried when the Os traded him to a contender (in the middle of a losing season)

we coulda tried to get him back but we had JJ so it woulda been pointless so the Sox smartly snatched him up

but he's sn awesome guy & great pitcher, mad love to him

i still gotta hope he crashes & burns against the redbirds tho

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/21/sports/baseball/beardless-in-boston.html?_r=0

Beardless in Boston: Uehara Stands Out

BOSTON — Long, bushy beards have become the unifying trademark of the 2013 Boston Red Sox, but the most valuable player of their American League Championship Series victory stands out for more than his pitching.

The series M.V.P., the cleanshaven closer Koji Uehara, was given a pass on the team’s unofficial pro-beard policy because most of his teammates thought he was incapable of growing one.

But that is hardly the case. Well before the Red Sox’ shaggy faces entered the national consciousness, Uehara (pronounced way-HA-ra) was a longstanding member of the antirazor brigade.

Until January, when he shaved it off on Japanese national television, Uehara had one of the most famous beards in Japan: light, Fu Manchu-style scruff with a wraparound beard connecting to his sideburns. It was considered ugly and brutish by many of his friends and countrymen, but he wore it defiantly for several years after coming to the United States in 2009.

He wore it as a member of the Baltimore Orioles in 2010 and during his two years with the Texas Rangers, including three appearances in the 2011 playoffs, when he posted a 33.75 earned run average, allowed three home runs and was reduced to tears in the clubhouse. He was wearing it Dec. 18 when he signed with the Red Sox.

But three weeks later — months before long, outlandish beards became de rigueur in Boston — Uehara went on “Best Sports,” a show on the NHK network in Japan, and had his facial hair removed, to the delight of many of his fans.

“I just didn’t know where I was going with that beard,” Uehara, 38, said through an interpreter Saturday afternoon before the final game of the A.L.C.S. “So I thought it was best to shave it off. It was a good time to do it, and I think many people were happy. They said I looked younger.”

Without facial hair, Uehara posted a career-low 1.09 E.R.A. in the regular season and had 21 saves after taking over as Boston’s full-time closer June 26. In the playoffs, he has been just as good, allowing one run in nine innings over eight games. He has five saves this postseason: two in a division series against the Tampa Bay Rays and three in the A.L.C.S. against the Detroit Tigers, including the save that clinched the pennant Saturday night.

But has shaving made him a better postseason pitcher?

“I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “I am not sure about that.”

Many of Uehara’s teammates said they did not recall that he had worn facial hair, and they were astounded to discover that he had rid himself of it in such a public manner.

“Really?” the bearded backup catcher David Ross said. “We just thought he couldn’t grow one. That’s great. I’ve got to find a photo of that and put it up in the clubhouse.”

Uehara’s postseason performance has been a radical departure from his struggles with the Rangers in 2011. In three agonizing outings that season, between Game 2 of a division series against the Rays and Game 5 of the A.L.C.S. against the Tigers, Uehara gave up home runs to Evan Longoria, Miguel Cabrera and Ryan Raburn. The Rangers did not use Uehara in their next eight postseason games.

After the third home run, which led to a difficult loss, Uehara sat in the Texas clubhouse and cried, surprising his teammates and even many Japanese reporters who had been familiar with his emotional demeanor.

It was not the first time he had shed tears publicly. In a September game in 1999, when Uehara was pitching for the Yomiuri Giants, the team’s manager directed him to pitch around and walk Roberto Petagine of the Yakult Swallows. Petagine was in a close battle for the home run title with Uehara’s teammate Hideki Matsui (who later joined the Yankees), and the Giants did not want to give Petagine a chance to hit a homer.

Uehara, then a 24-year-old rookie, was not pleased by the instructions. After throwing a fastball far outside for ball four, he kicked the mound in disgust. Then, as a television camera zoomed in on his face, Uehara was seen wiping tears from his eyes.

“I didn’t like the fact that I had to be one of the reasons someone would win and someone would lose the title,” he said Saturday. “If you are going to win any kind of title, it has to be fair and in a way he can be proud of.”

After the Red Sox wrapped up the A.L.C.S. at Fenway Park, Uehara further endeared himself to Boston fans. When he was announced as the series M.V.P., he was asked if he had been nervous in the games, and he replied as he often does.

“To tell the truth, I almost threw up,” he said as the crowd roared.

In one way, it makes sense that Uehara is now clean shaven in the midst of players who look like desert-island castaways. He originally grew his beard to stand apart from his teammates in Japan and from Japanese players in the majors, many of whom did not have facial hair.

Now that he is with a rowdy band of bearded Red Sox, he is distinguished in a different way.

“If I had a beard now,” he said, “I would not stand out.”

As long as he pitches the way he has so far this postseason, Uehara will stand out in any game, even if it’s a close shave.