El Duque's last post brings up an interesting question. If you are a fringe player and you are traded to the Yankees do you shave your beard immediately or do you wait until Spring Training just to make sure you are actually on the team?
It know that it's not exactly like if some one goes out and gets the Yankee logo tattooed on their ass, but a shaving a beard, especially if you have had one for a long time, can be quite the traumatic experience.
True story: I wore a beard for most of my twenties into my early thirties and one day I decided to shave it. Apparently I should have consulted my girlfriend because when she came home from work and saw my new look she started throwing things at me screaming something about how I now look like Jethrine from the Beverly Hillbillies.
She had issues.
Great sex though. And why is that so often the case?
But I digress...
Are the Yankees the only team in professional sports that places this kind of restriction on its athletes? I know that early on, the Tennessee Titans, in a misguided attempt to attract more locals, tried to require their players to shave their heads and do (more) meth. They abandoned the policy when too much equipment turned up missing. Then there was that mysterious fire in the training room...
But I digress...
This beard thing is a bigger deal than we acknowledge deal because as soon as someone leaves the team, growing one as an act of rebellion or freedom seems to be de rigueur.
If I was Matt Gage I'd shave it but, as the 40th man on the 40 man, and soon to be out of baseball, I'd try to do the Joe Namath Noxzema thing and find a sponsor to pay me to shave.
Any sponsor. Maybe Conigilo's Old Fashioned Pizzeria in New Jersey has some money left. It's worth a call.
Pretty damned funny, Doug!
ReplyDeleteHair today
ReplyDeleteGone tomorrow
Unwaveringly
Full of sorrow
For what could have been
But we will not win
More than 84
In this the year
2024
The Yankees are all wet! The crackpot administration should worry more about fixing the many holes on the team.
ReplyDeleteFunny Diug, thanks!
ReplyDeletePersonally, I like the no beards rule. A lot of bearded guys on other teams look like shit. And that includes the lumberjacks, hillbillies, 6-day stubble and House of David-looking guys.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I'm getting to be a cranky old fuck (though I wasn't that cheery in my younger days). My wife is 12 years younger than me and she agrees wholeheartedly.
You want a beard, join ZZ Top. You're on the Yankees, you shave.
STAR Insurance patches, Nike swooshes, and you want beards, too?
Of course, I still want pitchers to bat, also. So there ya go.
Oh, yeah. It is a pretty funny post, Doug!
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, Jordan Montgomery is being jerked around by Texas and the intern can't find his phone number.
ReplyDeleteIncompetence at its finest.
Montgomery's age 36 contract? The intern will be all in. After the TJ surgery of course.
JM, I support the DH. That's the one wild, weird, psychedelic, pro-hippie stand I've ever taken, and I'm sticking to it.
ReplyDeleteReally, though, I agree about the beards—and when I was in high school or college, I would've fought to the death to defend everyone's right to wear any facial hair they choose. Well, all right, maybe not to the death. To the first mild paper cut, frankly.
But I don't like it now not only because most major-league facial hair is unkempt and ugly as sin. It's also because I find it an affectation. It's all these multimillionaires pretending that they're just regular joes, blue-collar, lunch-pail guys, who just happen to work at baseball. Horseshit. Look good, play good.
And yeah, Rufus, that's incredible. After the Yankees fell flat on their collective faces chasing everything that absolutely had to be done—another big starter, a "super-charged" (or at least, "charged") bullpen, and another infielder or two...MLB is now giving them a second chance.
ReplyDeleteThey made their rock-bottom offer to Snell...and lo and behold, nobody else is biting! So give him another $10 million to save face and sign him up. Go talk to Monty—and bring him back!
If Cashman can apologize to Marcus Fucking Stroman, he can apologize to Jordan.