This story was excerpted from Scott Merkin’s White Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
CHICAGO -- Austin Slater will look different when he takes the field for the White Sox during the next homestand beginning on the night of June 2, as the outfielder’s mustache will be gone.
“No, I won’t keep it past May,” a smiling Slater recently told MLB.com. “My wife hates it.”
Slater’s mustache growth, in part, was done “to kind of get the juju switched up for a little bit,” according to the veteran, as well as taking your mind off baseball and creating a little camaraderie. The process began in 2019 with Mike Yastrzemski when they were both in Triple-A Sacramento as part of the Giants' organization and they’ve carried it through to the big leagues, but now with a more specific purpose beyond baseball.
Mustache May is intended to raise awareness and money for mental health and treatment plans and programs, with a specific Slater focus on The Road Home Program, as illustrated and explained on mustachemay.com. Brendan Donovan, Austin Wynns, Adam Frazier and Trey Mancini are fellow Major Leaguers part of Team Stache, according to the website.
“It timed up that Mustache May was the start of it and May is also Mental Health Awareness month,” Slater said. “This also resonated with me having had former teammates that have attempted suicide.
“We are trying to shed some light that everyone is going through struggles, whether it be baseball players or regular people too. So just to end the stigma of being able to talk about it and talk about it with the people that you are close with, then try to share some of the burden.”
Drew Robinson is one of those teammates Slater mentioned above, and his story has been well documented. Robinson attempted suicide with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head on April 16, 2020. He survived and now does work through his Better Universe Foundation.
As Yogi Berra once famously said, “Baseball is 90 percent mental. The other half is physical.” The mental part often separates the good players from the great players, regardless of the raw talent. But that mental aspect has a different look for everyone in 2025.
“It’s a constant struggle and it’s something you have to keep working on all the time, especially in the day of social media, where people can hide behind computer screens and try to send hateful things to other people,” Slater said. “That’s another level of, another whole component, which drains players. Makes it even harder to compete and perform at this level.
“Every player that’s in the league right now has gotten some form of that. It’s unfortunate. You expect it in the stands, but when people are trying to message your family or tell you to go kill yourself, or things like that, because they think there are no repercussions, it’s just disgusting. Anyone who says that it doesn’t is probably lying to themselves.”
Even though Slater will be without the mustache in a few days, he encourages people to “care for your homies” because “even the strong have off days,” as the mustachemay.com website states. It’s more than facial hair. It’s more than baseball.