MESA, Ariz. — The news was stunning and the Chicago Cubs had a hard time grasping how they felt about it as word spread quickly Friday morning throughout their clubhouse.
The New York Yankees, for the first time in nearly 50 years, announced that they will now permit their players to grow ‘well-groomed beards’ moving forward.
“I don’t know how to feel about it,’ Cubs veteran shortstop Dansby Swanson, who has had a beard for the past eight or nine years, told USA TODAY Sports. “I’m really torn. Part of me is like, ‘Dang.’
“I mean, it was the Yankees. That was their thing, being clean-shaven. It was pretty cool.’
Cubs broadcaster and former All-Star first baseman Ron Coomer, who played in 2002 for the Yankees, didn’t have mixed feeling at all. He hates that the Yankees got rid of the policy that has been in effect since 1976.
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“I think it’s terrible,’ Coomer said. “Mr. [George] Steinbrenner will be rolling over in his grave right now. They had a golden rule, and they stuck with it.
“When we went over there to play, there were three of us, Robin Ventura, Jason Giambi and I were all signed the same year, and we knew. “When [former manager] Joe Torre called us, ‘You do know you have to shave, right?’ I said, ‘We know. We’ll be there clean as a whistle.”
It was part of Yankees lore. No names on the back of the uniform. No beards. No hair past the uniform collar.
“I totally respect why they did it,’’ said Jed Hoyer, Cubs president of baseball operations, “but it was always a fascinating element of their culture. It feels like a bigger change than it actually is.
“Watching those guys who have beards go in there and be clean-shaven, it was a tradition.’
Yankees managing partner Hal Steinbrenner, the son of George, said Friday he had been considering the change for years. The irony is that it happened just days after new closer Devin Williams arrived.
“Good for Devin Wiliams!’ Cubs manager Craig Counsell said of his former closer. “My reaction is that looks better with facial hair.’
And, as the Cubs players joked, no one looked worse clean shaven than outfielder Alex Verdugo last year, saying he was unrecognizable.
“I played with Brian Wilson,’ infielder Justin Turner said of his former Dodger teammate. “The one thing I learned from him is he got offered a million dollars to shave his beard. …
“He says, ‘When I’m done playing, I’m going to shave my beard and no one is going to know who I am and I’ll be left alone.’
“I said, “Hey, that’s a good point. I like that.’
Turner, whose red beard is now trimmed, says he’s still not sure his beard would pass Yankee standards. He always wondered if he would reject free-agent overtures from the Yankees if they came calling because of the beard policy, but never had the opportunity. Certainly, the Yankees had to lose some bearded free agents, several Cubs players believed, if offers were close.
“I think it’s about time,’ said Turner, who was drafted by the New York Yankees in 2005, but instead went to Cal State Fullerton. “I don’t know how that rule makes anybody a better baseball player. Yeah we’re professionals, but it’s 2025, you should be able to express yourself a little bit.’’
Turner has had his beard since 2011, and shaved it only once. It was for a Halloween costume, he said. He was “Chucky, not the cartoon, the killer.’
“I wonder what made them change their mind,’ Turner said. “Did someone look so bad without a beard that they’re like, ‘we got to change this?’ Was it Alex Verdugo? He looked terrible.
“I’m like, ‘What’s a short, well-groomed beard? Does mine count?’ I might have had to put a Bruce Bolt on the side of my beard like guys are doing with their hair. I’m going to be like PCA [Cubs outfielder Pete Crow-Armstong] and have them put blue stars in my beard.’’
The Cubs players believe that the edict forcing Williams having to shave his beard, particularly since he was traded to New York and didn’t sign as a free agent, played a role in the policy change.
“I just saw a picture of Devin Williams with a little moustache,’ Cubs veteran reliever Ryan Brasier said, “and I didn’t even know who it was. I couldn’t’ even tell it was him. I remember when I saw Verdugo on TV last year. I called him and I was like, ‘Dude, you got to figure something out. You look weird.’
Brasier, who came up with the Los Angeles Angels and was prohibited from growing a beard until he reached the big leagues, has had his beard since 2013. He hasn’t been clean-shaven since, and says he’s unrecognizable too from pictures from his minor-league days.
“I think it sucked for those guys, but hey, it’s the Yankees,’ Brasier said. “It’s been one of those things since the beginning of time for them. But it’s the Yankees. You do what you have to do.’
And if you were adamant that you didn’t want to shave, well, you weren’t going to sign with the Yankees.
“If I had two options, I wouldn’t say I definitely would go somewhere else over the Yankees because of facial hair,’ Brasier said, “but if it was between the Yankees and Cubs, Dodgers or whoever, I’d be like, ‘The teams are pretty even, but I don’t feel like shaving so I won’t go.’ But still, it’s the Yankees. It would suck to shave, but I would go there.
“But I do know there were people who would not go there because they didn’t want to shave.’
Steinbrenner conceded in his press conference in Tampa that it was a legitimate concern that players may have snubbed the Yankees in free agency simply because of their policy banning beards and not permitting hair past the collar of their uniforms.
Still, it’s the Yankees, the 27-time World Series champion Yankees, the most iconic brand in baseball.
“It was kind of a cool, unique thing that the Yankees had that made them different,’ Cubs reliever Julian Merryweather said. “No names on the back of their jerseys. The shaves. Everything being tucked in.
“It will be nice not seeing [former teammate] Mark Leiter clean-shaven, so that’s probably the best thing. It will be cool to see what all of those guys look like this year.’
But for other veterans, well, it marks the end of a glorious, albeit antiquated, era.
“I grew up in a military household where my dad (Kurt) would constantly remind me in high school to shave every day,’ Cubs veteran starter Matthew Boyd said, “so I’m mixed. I really respected it. It wasn’t too out of the norm for me that someone would ask for that.
“I just remembering growing up watching all of those Yankee teams and you think of all of the tight hair, no beards, it was kind of synonymous with the Yankees growing up. That clean-cut appearance.
“But I guess, changing times, right?
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