The look will always draw as much attention as the results for A’s rookie Daniel Mengden.
From the old-school handlebar mustache he wears to his unorthodox delivery on the mound, everything about the 23-year-old right-hander appears to defy convention.
That’s a mentality that began taking root in Mengden from the time he was introduced to baseball as a youngster in Houston.
“He’d go round and round with coaches all the time,” his father, Joe, recalled in a phone interview. “They’d say, ‘You gotta hold your hands like this, swing like this. Have your arm slot here.