There’s not much to complain about as a Yankee fan. It’s true that you have to put up with jokes about “buying championships”—but those jokes are anti-labor anyway. And it’s true that we are currently in the middle of a Yankee championship drought of almost unprecedented length, but even this low period has included four ALCS appearances and a pair of 100-win seasons. All in all, it’s a pretty good deal.
But in exchange, you have to put up with the dumbest thing in all of sports: the Yankees grooming policy. Every now and then the Yankees will acquire a player who has a beard and/or long hair. Then everyone remembers that the Yankees have this ridiculous, archaic policy about player appearances, and the player has to shave or get a haircut. Then there is a whole round of press about how weird the guy looks, or how his kids no longer recognize him—I guess we are supposed to find this cute? And then broadcasters show Before and After photos during the games, and gawk.
The whole ritual would be offensive if it weren’t so low stakes and formulaic. It’s hard to get worked up about a shave and a haircut. But also, how on Earth is this acceptable? Do players on the Yankees no longer have bodily autonomy?
The appearance policy has its origins in the 1970s, when George Steinbrenner bought the team and didn’t like the hairstyles of guys like Thurman Munson and Sparky Lyle. This was in the middle of a big cultural clash over long hair and beards, when they were still associated with hippies and the counterculture. Steinbrenner, an Air Force veteran and country club Republican, wanted nothing to do with this, and his policy stemmed from a desire to restore the classic aura of the 1950s Yankees. He clearly cared about the policy, picking fights over it with a manager, Lou Pinella, and a star player, Don Mattingly. That doesn’t make it a good policy, but it MEANT something (at least it’s an ethos).
Now, George has been dead for over ten years. More than that, beards and long hairstyles are no longer the cultural battleground they once were. Ted Cruz and Paul Ryan have beards. So does Greg Popovich. It doesn’t MEAN anything—it’s just a look. To the extent that workplace grooming policies have any predictable effect, it is a kind of backdoor discrimination against Blacks and Latinos—which is why a policy like the Yankees’ is now illegal in New York.
And yet the rule marches on, claiming the beard of Rougned Odor just last week. At this point, it is just about power. It’s a matter of making players submit, no matter how silly the request. Defenses of the policy invariably invoke the money players earn—if Gerrit Cole/Jason Giambi/Johnny Damon want the Yankees’ money, they have to accept the Yankees’ rules. Nevermind that the rule makes no sense, has nothing to do with baseball, and is against the law. It’s as if these uppity players need to be reminded: When the ownership class makes rules, you just have to accept them. To do otherwise to be ungrateful and selfish. No Yankee since Mattingly has really challenged the rule, even though it’s clear from what guys say when they leave the team or how they push the limits of the rule that they don’t love it. But who wants to be seen as a troublemaker over something as trivial as a haircut?
We could have a larger, more philosophical discussion about whether dress codes are inherently anti-labor, but that’s irrelevant—the MLB already has a dress code! We could debate the value of uniformity in creating a team atmosphere, but we don’t need to—baseball players already wear uniforms! The question here is simply: Who is in charge? Who needs to be obeyed, no matter how silly and irrelevant their request? Plenty of workplaces run on this principle. In sports, we are used to respecting skill and granting workers some degree of autonomy. But the owners must assert their dominance, even if it means resorting to the dumbest possible lengths.