ST. GEORGE — While the Staten Island Yankees split their opening series this weekend to their over-the-bridge rivals the Brooklyn Cyclones, they failed to make it into the record books for wearing fake mustaches.
The team hoped to set the Guinness Book World Record for most fake mustaches worn at the same place at the same time at their home opener against the Cyclones on Friday.
The sellout crowd in the 7,171-seat Richmond County Bank Ballpark would have easily cleared the previous record, but the game was canceled because of rain and the team decided to try again at the double header on Sunday, Staten Island Yankees CEO Steve Violetta said.
"We thought let's try it, we got a decent crowd here. We came up a couple of hundred short for the world record," Violetta said. "If [the Friday] game would have happened we would have destroyed it."
The "Baby Bombers" split their home-opening double header against the Cyclones, winning the first game, but losing the second. Both teams won two games each in their first four-game series for the 2014 season.
The idea to challenge the record for fake 'staches came from local comedian Jen Remauro and the American Mustaches Institute, who organized the event.
The team handed out free, fake mustaches to the crowd at the third-inning to try and topple the record of 2,268 worn in Iowa on July 2013.
And even though the team failed to set the record on Sunday, Violetta said they plan to take another shot at it either later this month or next month during a home game.
"We're definitely going to try again," he said. "It's like a championship. Sometimes you don't get there all the way, sometimes you got to lose before you can take the next step. That's the kind of the way we look at it."
