Take a close look at Joe Girardi's mouth. Why would a grown man wear braces, specifically during the one month of his life when he's most likely to be on national TV? A pretty sweet reason, actually.

He's obviously somewhat self-conscious about it, seemingly making an effort to keep them covered in public (See here for a typical photo). But what would possess a man with perfectly fine teeth to turn into metalmouth at age 45? A promise to his daughter.

Buried deep within this amateurish local station's "blog" (this is the kind of stuff they're going to be charging for, people), is the story of how Girardi's then-5-year-old daughter was scared of getting braces, so he made her a deal: if she needed them, he'd get them too.

So little Serena's teeth got all crooked, and Papa Joe lived up to his end of the bargain. That's adorable. Almost makes me forget that Damaso Marte and Jerry Hairston have no business being on a major league field.

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Send an email to Barry Petchesky, the author of this post, at barryp@deadspin.com.