The scruffy story of why the New York Yankees can never have facial hair...
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George Steinbrenner wanted his players to look ‘neat.’ Fifty years later, the team still fears the beard, a silly policy endemic of an antiquated ethos that baseball is trying to get away from.
In January 1973, George Steinbrenner, along with 11 other business partners, bought the New York Yankees. The deal was for $10 million, a bargain considering the team’s previous owner, CBS, had purchased the club for $13.2 million back in 1964. Steinbrenner had made his name in the shipping industry, dabbling in Broadway as well. But when the New York Times reported the sale of the Yankees, Steinbrenner was modest about his ambitions. “We plan absentee ownership as far as running the Yankees is concerned,” he insisted. “We’re not going to pretend we’re something we aren’t. I’ll stick to building ships.”
Steinbrenner has been dead now for 12 years, but his fingerprints remain all over baseball’s most storied team. For one thing, his family still owns the club. But more symbolically, one of his rules continues to be upheld to this day: If you’re a New York Yankee, you can’t have long hair and you can’t have a beard.
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https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/...al-hair-policy