“I like to have five meals a day, from nine in the morning to nine at night, and I’m going to get a little specific here: They have to be 584 calories, 11 grams of fat, 70 grams of carbohydrates, 60 grams of protein per meal. Or I can go days without eating. It’s not healthy, I know, but I love the way it feels. You get away from your own mind, even though it’s impossible. I’m thinking but not thinking. The endorphins are taking over. I live on a hill, and I get lazy sometimes. I don’t want to drive down and get food. So I just drink water for a few days.”–Brian Wilson, Sports Illustrated, February 7, 2011

Obvious way to start an essay about Brian Wilson: Beard, beard, beard, beard beard, beardy beard beardbeard. I LOVE HIS BEARD AND HIS BEARD IS LITERALLY THE ONLY THING WORTH MENTIONING ABOUT HIM. WHO CARES WHETHER OR NOT A HUMAN PERSON LURKS BENEATH? BEARD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Less obvious way to start an essay about Brian Wilson: A few months ago, I saw him walking out of a Starbucks in Studio City, Ca. in a shredded t-shirt and fancy sweats eating a muffin like it was an apple. Grasped with a claw and bite.

I have never seen any human being choose to eat a muffin in quite this way. It’s stuck with me ever since. Not because of the act itself, which, yeah, amazing for all the reasons you’d expect. I mention it to anyone anytime his name is uttered (I live in Los Angeles, have a 6-month beard going and wear a Dodger cap often. He gets brought up a lot. *eyeroll* *gag*)

But I keep coming back to that candid, three-second-long peek at Brian Wilson’s offseason breakfast because for a moment, he was a person. Not a gimmick, not a professional baseball player acting more like a professional wrestler. Just a dude who lives in the San Fernando Valley, wanted a muffin, couldn’t handle the iced tea and the pastry at the same time and just wanted a quick bite before heading to wherever people in Los Angeles without definitive places to be go.

It is at this point that we dive head first into a discussion of appearances, but with all the focus being on Wilson’s facial hair all of the time, it’s fairly safe to say that the beard is what he wants you to see. D-doy. It’s dyed jet black and is assuredly more Altamont than Woodstock. He wants you to focus on it. To say it stands out is an understatement. But it’s a distraction. A sleight of hand, and a pretty bad one at that.

Wilson isn’t the first relief pitcher to use some kind of signature facial hair to somehow get one over on batters. Al Hrabosky, Dennis Eckersley, Goose Gossage, Eric Gagné, blah blah blah blah blah. But all those guys would readily admit that the facial hair served to amplify their already, for lack of a better word, dickish behavior. Al Hrabosky, known coloquially as “The Mad Hungarian” would go legit nutso in an effort to psych out opposing hitters. Smacking his glove, kicking the dirt and muttering what I assume are excerpts from his yet-to-be-penned manifesto to no one in particular. Eck was just a dick, and if the mustache fit, fuck as fuck he was gonna wear it. He’ll also screw your wife AND 19 year-old daughter and STILL manage to get a quick tan in before having to hit the ballpark. Eck ya later, broseph. Gossage is the progenitor of the closer role in and of itself, so maybe these mustaches are a chicken and the egg-type thing. Gagné was just French-Canadian and there is nothing you can do to mask that, but the Dodgers used to sell Gagné t-shirts that had fuzzy goatees, so it’s obviously a feature he traded on.

The point I’m trying to make here is that the four cases above used their facial hair as an affront. Wilson uses it to distract. From what? Have you ever looked into his eyes? Like, really looked at them. They’re…sweet. Soft. Underneath all the viscera, Brian Wilson is a little emotional baby boy.

Takeaway the beard and the tattoos and the dreadhawk and he’s kind of just a…guy. A vulnerable guy with baby blues that can see right through your soul and make you want to pen a teenage symphony to god.

On Sunday night against the Padres, as he surrendered San Diego’s only three runs and committed an error in the 8th, the camera kept catching him, and unlike most pitchers who glaze over when the goin’ gets tough, Wilson looked like he was going to cry. After 20.2 shimmering innings in 2013 with the Dodgers and one in Australia this year, Wilson had a bad night, and it probably freaked him the fuck out. Prior to joining the Dodgers late last August, he had missed the end of 2011 and all but two innings of 2012. He had made it back from Tommy John surgerIES, gracefully taken on 8th innings for the Dodgers and filled that role better than anyone could’ve imagined, aside from probably himself.

In his words, Sunday was an aberration. He told Steve Dilbeck of the LA Times ”I’m not particularly used to having ‘one of those nights.’ ” Yeah. That was fairly obvious. He just wasn’t made for these times.

But, some nights you’re more mythic than your own facial hair’s narrative and some nights you’re just a guy who can’t handle a muffin and an iced tea at the same time so you improvise. Sometimes it works and you come up with something brilliant, other times, it’s just this.

And that’s okay. He’s a person.