This week, we celebrate a moment when one man literally changed the face of a franchise – from clean-shaven to bewhiskered.

In 1960, charismatic businessman Charlie Finley bought a controlling interest in the Kansas City Athletics. Eight years later, he moved the A’s to Oakland, where the team would win three straight World Series championships with stars like Reggie Jackson, Catfish Hunter, Vida Blue and Rollie Fingers. If those names bring to mind images of famous facial hair, you can thank Charlie Finley for that.

No major leaguer had sported whiskers since 1914, but in 1972 when Reggie Jackson showed up to spring training with a full beard, Finley decided not to order him to shave it. Instead, Finley embraced it, and announced that he’d pay out a bonus to any A’s who grew mustaches.

When the A’s faced the Reds in the ’72 World Series, the media dubbed it “the Hairs versus the Squares.” The A’s prevailed, and the rest, as they say, is hairstory.