Clay Zavada Is Your 'Mustached American of the Year'

While the New York Yankees and Philadelphia Phillies are busy battling for the meaningless title of World Series champion Arizona reliever Clay Zavada was in St. Louis to receive some real hardware. Yes, after much debate throughout the country and campaigns that cost American taxpayers millions of dollars, Zavada was named the "Mustached American of the Year" by the American Mustache Institute on Sunday night.

We shall all now bow to the power of Zavada's Rollie Fingers-esque mustache, and hope that through the will of being too lazy to shave, we too can one day achieve such greatness for ourselves.

"Clay and his menacing mouth garden were a great story throughout the 2009 baseball season, and Quicken and the American Mustache Institute are proud to honor him as the 'Robert Goulet Memorial Mustached American of the Year' award winner," said Chelsea Marti of Quicken®, who herself is a robust supporter of the Mustached American way of life.

Zavada won the Goulet award after more than 100,000 total online votes were cast. He was joined at 'Stache Bash by fellow finalists Dr. John Yeutter, a Northeastern State University professor and CBS News reporter Bill Geist, who grabbed the microphone after the announcement and bellowed "Kayne West was right." Other finalists included U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Brendan Ryan of the St. Louis Cardinals, USA Today blogger Whitney Matheson, US Airways pilot Sully Sullenberger, and Mayor Dan Snarr of Murray City, Utah. Several cartoon characters including JStache and FOX Television's "Cleveland" received votes, but after much debate, were disqualified because they violated a clause that required the winner to sign an ethics agreement as well as actually exist in real life.

It's hard to disagree with Kanye West. Zavada really did deserve this award over any other members of his "competition." Captain Sullenberger? Please, how hard can it be to land a plane in the Hudson River? It's so wide! Bring that beast down in Times Square without killing anybody, and we can talk.

Let's see Sullenberger strike out 52 batters in only 51 innings. Not even his mustache could help him there.