And during the Mets' matchup with the Phillies on Friday night, the team finally gave the mustache its due. The first 20,000 fans to arrive at Shea Stadium received fake mustaches courtesy of SNY, honoring Keith's mustache for its recent win in the American Mustache Institute's "Top Sports Mustache of All Time" contest, a victory based on an internet vote that demonstrated the regard with which the mustache-appreciating world views Keith's facial ornamentation.

"That mustache is more popular than most people ever will be," explains SNY field reporter Kevin Burkhardt, who works in the shadow of the mustache daily. "I think the mustache would pretty much beat anything on the broadcast."

Neither a sleazy, pencil-thin effort like those that caught on in the 1950s and again in contemporary times among a slew of Brooklyn hipsters, nor one of the bushy horseshoe numbers befitting Harley Davidson owners, Keith's mustache at once defines its breed while resisting more specific characterization. Wider than the toothbrush of Charlie Chaplin and cleaner than Wilford Brimley's walrus-style 'stache, it's not a Rollie Fingers or a Salvador Dali or even a Fu Manchu; it's the mustache your father kept for a couple of years during your childhood. It's a mustache that announces, without pretense or irony:

I am man.

"It's amazing," says Sal, a mustachioed Mets fan who preferred not to divulge his surname. "I grew my mustache because of Keith's mustache and I've kept it ever since."

Keith Hernandez's mustache needs no soul patch or chin beard to underscore its magnificence and requires no mutton chops or sideburns to draw the eye toward its vigor. It stands alone on Keith's lip, confident in its power and clocklike in its consistency. It's the rare manner of facial hair deemed acceptable for Disney and Steinbrenner employees: widely regarded as socially appropriate yet still somehow impious.

A mustache like that is not something just anyone can acquire.

"I tried to grow one in high school," said Burkhardt. "I just had four scraggily hairs. It wasn't a good look. I'll leave that to Keith and Tom Selleck."

Yet even the former Thomas Magnum, one of the great mustache heroes of the 1980s, has since appeared in public clean-shaven. The same is true for Keith's biggest mustache rival in his glory days, fellow New York first baseman Don Mattingly.

While the mustaches of Selleck and Mattingly may have disappeared into the void created by fleeting trends, Keith's mustache has powered forward into the 21st century, a beacon of mustache hope on a very bleak facial-hair landscape. And it's not going anywhere.

In addition to its regular duties in the SNY broadcast booth, Keith's mustache earns a living as a spokesman for Just for Men Beard and Mustache, a distinction that caused some controversy during the campaign for the "Top Sports Mustache" honor.

"The mustache community is split on [Hernandez's] involvement with mustache-performance-enhancing drugs," said AMI executive director Aaron Perlut in a statement announcing the award. "But we respect our voters' opinions and are officially neutral on this touchy subject."

Though the debate over its win still rages in many parts of the mustache community, Keith's mustache deserves uncompromised credit for its longevity and consistency -- its been a part of the first baseman's visage since he first entered the Major Leagues and the public consciousness in 1974. Its role in the commercials confirms a history of chemical enhancement, but Keith's mustache has never tested positive for any banned mustache substances or found guilty of breaking any AMI rules.

And beyond the worldwide recognition it earned with the AMI honor, Keith's mustache deserves credit for its singular role in Mets history. Inarguably the greatest mustache on the greatest and perhaps most widely mustachioed team in Mets history, Keith's mustache won a World Series ring in 1986, a distinction no Met's mustache has earned since.

That hasn't been for lack of effort. In Keith's last season with the Mets in 1989, the Amazins acquired Frank Viola and his pushbroom 'stache. Sweet Music and his bushy adornment met with some success in New York, but never could capture the World Series crown or escape from the mighty shadow of Keith's mustache.

When the last scraps of the lauded late-1980s Mets teams were on their way out of town, the team picked up second baseman Jeff Kent and his mustache in a trade for David Cone. Kent's mustache had a rocky tenure in Flushing, drawing the ire of fans and never living up its obvious potential, a talented mustache rendered lifeless by its owner's cantankerous attitude.

The somewhat successful turn-of-the-millenium Mets teams were piloted by two very popular mustaches, belonging to catcher Mike Piazza and reliever John Franco. Yet both men were fickle in their mustache upkeep, occasionally shaving, occasionally resorting to a full beard or goatee, and clearly lacking the dedication required to maintain a mustache like Keith's. Perhaps appropriately, while both mustaches saw postseason action, neither earned a title.

In 2006, Jose Valentin's mustache became an exemplar of the Omar Minaya era, a mustache rescued from baseball's scrap heap to meet with unexpected success in Flushing. But perhaps crushed under the weight of comparisons with Keith's mustache, Valentin and his facial hair fell victim to multiple injuries and have likely played their last game with the Mets.

So though the Mets may achieve October success in this season or the next, barring a trade or an unprecedented growth, it is unlikely that the team will do so with a mustache as powerful and respected as Keith's. Luckily for the Amazins, they can still look to Keith's mustache doing its job in the SNY booth nearly every day, a reminder of the Mets past mustache glory and a harbinger of what, according to Burkhardt, could be many great mustache moments to come:

"It might even be able to rule a country some day."

Keith's mustache was not available for comment.