Upon returning to Moscow from his Grand Embassy around Europe in 1698, Tsar Peter the Great of Russia produced a long barber’s razor from his pocket and began personally shaving off the beards of stunned boyars at the royal court. As part of a radical westernisation policy, he wanted to rid his society of all facial hair. Over the next few months, he often turned up at banquets with blade in tow just in case it was needed to hack away at some bewhiskered outlier who’d refused to toe the line. An unskilled practitioner, Peter often sheared away as much skin as he did hair.
Upon returning to baseball in 1976 following a suspension for making illegal campaign contributions to Richard Nixon, George Steinbrenner, Tsar of the New York Yankees of the Bronx, declared players could no longer have beards or long hair. He now wanted them to resemble the clean-cut, short back and sides, pinstriped teams he’d watched as a boy. Afros were shorn. Fu Manchu moustaches disappeared. Every time the owner walked through the clubhouse, somebody shouted “Ten-shun” in mocking acknowledgment of tonsorial regulations more befitting the military than the major leagues. But the rules stuck. Hard.
Last week the Yankees held a 20-minute press conference to announce that the club is now going to allow players to have beards. Forty-nine years after his father mimicked Peter the Great, Hal Steinbrenner, the current managing partner, repealed the law. And this was regarded as so momentous an event it required a sit-down briefing with the media. For a team with one World Series victory in a quarter of a century, nothing better encapsulates the pomposity with which this outfit conducts its business. They never treated the issue of rampant steroid use in their locker room with this kind of gravitas.
“This generation, the vast majority of 20, 30s-into-the-40s men in this country have beards,” said Steinbrenner. “It is a part of who these younger men are. It’s part of their character. It’s part of their persona. Do I totally relate to that? It’s difficult for me. I’m an older guy who’s never had a beard in his life but it’s a very important thing to them. They feel it defines their character.”
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He was flanked on the dais by Brian Cashman, the Yankees’ general manager. As if the solemn declaration was of such significance it required the top two executives to offer an explanation. In a hilariously po-faced performance, reporters were assured the decision had only been made after much research, careful consultation and extensive dialogue with the head coach, Aaron Boone, and team leaders Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. They also canvassed opinion from several former stars to help them figure out if players should be allowed to take the field with goatees. No, seriously.
“My initial reaction is I feel weird,” said Austin Wells, Yankees’ catcher. “I don’t know how to go forward. I think it’s not only a policy, but it’s the tradition and history of the Yankees. With anything new, there’s an adjustment period. But for me, I felt very weird this morning. I don’t know how to react.”
The baffling words of a 25-year-old, a full grown man with two years at university on his CV, when informed his employers say he can now turn up for work with a “well-groomed beard”. In a similarly exaggerated vein, CBS in New York considered this legit breaking news, and Michael Kay, voice of Yankees’ games on television, ventured: “I don’t think it’s hyperbole. It kind of stunned the baseball world.” Which is more of a commentary on this arcane corner of the sporting universe than anything else. Nobody in any game takes themselves quite as seriously as this crowd.
The elder Steinbrenner set that preposterous tone across decades when he ruled by stentorian decree in a style so ripe for parody he became a recurring character as George Costanza’s comic foil on Seinfeld. Part of the reason he was so easily lampooned was bombastic decision-making, like dictating that players’ hair could reach the collar but must never obscure it. In the beginning, they thought he was joking until one outfielder was ordered back to the barbers in 1976 because he didn’t go short enough the first time.
The demented owner once recalled an entire print run of the club yearbook because he thought too many players excessively hirsute in their profile pics. Don Mattingly, arguably the greatest Yankee never to win a World Series, was suspended for a game in the summer of 1991 because of his refusal to get his hair trimmed before warming up. When the New York tabloids feasted on that story, fans turned up to the next match supporting their hero by wearing his number 23 jersey and long-haired wigs. Plenty of others through the years, most notably Randy Johnson and Johnny Damon, agreed to surrender flowing locks and stubble as a condition of signing for the club.
[ Taking it on the chin – An Irishman’s Diary on beardsOpens in new window ]
“Jesus Christ had long hair and a beard,” complained Lou Piniella, a club stalwart in the 1980s, when the owner ordered him to trim his locks and shave his mutton chops. “Why can’t we have beards and long hair?”
“You see that pond?” responded Steinbrenner, pointing to a body of water behind their training facility. “Walk across that pond and you can have a beard and long hair.”
The age of miracles is upon the Yankees.
