The famous ‘beard rule’ that reigned among many other policies that the New York Yankees established many years ago has finally been left behind, and as it is a time of adaptation, there are many who have seen in perspective what it meant for the Bronx Bombers and their players to follow this ‘requirement‘ imposed by George Steinbrenner.
“Mattingly, shave those sideburns”
In fact, the rule of the man who was owner of the Yankees from 1973 until his death in 2010 is so famous that the popular animated television series The Simpsons alluded to it in the third season episode in which the character Montgomery Burns recruits great figures from the Major Leagues to form the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball team.
In it, Monty repeatedly orders Don Mattingly to “get rid of those sideburns!”, to which the player reacts by cutting off almost all of his hair. Well, Mattingly was actually forced by Steinbrenner’s rule to cut his long hair from his first season with the Yankees in 1982, although he never shaved off his mustache.
An equally hilarious anecdote, but without so much hair in between, was recently told by the great Alex Rodriguez in an episode of Bloomberg Originals with Johnny Damon, in which they recalled this rule that had more to do with Steinbrenner’s concept of ‘being a Yankee’ than with any issue of hygiene or obsession with facial hair.
Damon blew his hair out and A-Rod didn’t care
While Damon remembered his forced shaving session after landing in Manhattan from the Boston Red Sox, A-Rod did the same, saying that he always wanted to grow a beard and has fought for 30 years for it to happen, but it has never grown, so for him it was never a big problem to comply with the rule: “I’ve been trying to grow a beard for 30 years and I can’t. So I have no choice“, he said with a laugh.
Today the reality is different, the rule has been ‘repealed’ and the Yankees have to worry about more important things than simply facial hair or the hair of their players, while the analysis of the reluctance that once also existed, is now in the realm of anecdote, and there are many stories like the ones told by Damon and A-Rod.
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