Yankees part with tradition: Beards are now allowed

Mariano Rivera and Bernie Williams had to shave. So did Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez.

But now Aaron Judge, Giancarlo Stanton and the rest of the current New York Yankee roster will be allowed to grow “well-groomed beards” if they so choose, after the club on Friday announced a change to its long-standing grooming policy.

The all-clear for beards was announced by Hal Steinbrenner, the team’s managing general partner whose father started the beard ban — and vigorously enforced it for years.

“After great consideration, we will be amending our expectations to allow our players and uniformed personnel to have well-groomed beards moving forward,” Steinbrenner said in a statement Friday. “It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy.”

Since the 1970s, the Yankees have barred their players, as well as staff members, from having beards or long hair. George Steinbrenner, Hal Steinbrenner’s father and the owner at the time, believed that neater appearance would promote professionalism and discipline among his players.

“I’m trying to instill a certain sense of order and discipline in the ballclub, because I think discipline is important in an athlete,” he said in 1976.

Hal Steinbrenner said at a news conference later Friday that players would still be required to have “a well-groomed, clean look.”

“It is important to the leaders of our team that we maintain that disciplined look,” he said.

Asked Friday what his father would have said about the change, Hal Steinbrenner said he believed that the chance that some star players might be reluctant to come to the Yankees because of the beard ban might have swayed him. “He might be a little more apt to do the change that I did than people think.

“Winning was the most important thing to my father,” he said.

While some other major North American sports teams have policies regarding dress or appearance, the Yankees’ beard policy was among the strictest, and certainly the most well-known. That notoriety was compounded by the Yankees’ history of success — they have won 27 World Series titles, 16 more than any other team — and the seeming arrogance it brought, at least as perceived by many of its rivals.

Hal Steinbrenner said in the statement that he had consulted with “a large number of former and current Yankees, spanning several eras,” before changing the policy.

The policy has occasionally rankled members of the team. In one of the most famous incidents, Don Mattingly, the team’s best player and captain in 1991, was pulled from the lineup and fined because he declined to cut his hair.

“I’m overwhelmed by the pettiness of it,” Mattingly told reporters then. He relented soon afterward and got a trim.

The incident was parodied in a 1992 episode of “The Simpsons.” In the show, Mattingly joined a team owned by the character Mr. Burns, who made unreasonable demands for Mattingly’s grooming and then kicked him off the team. Mattingly, who voiced his own character, walked away saying, “I still like him better than Steinbrenner.”

Not every player had an issue with the beard ban. “The new policy wouldn’t have affected me since I’ve been trying to grow a beard unsuccessfully for 30 years,” Alex Rodriguez, who spent 12 seasons with the Yankees, said in a text message Friday from the Yankees’ training camp, where he is a guest instructor.

But in recent years, there was growing speculation that the policy was hurting the Yankees’ chances of acquiring quality players.

“You’d be surprised how much more attractive the Yankees would be if they got rid of that facial hair rule,” Cameron Maybin, a former Yankee, said in 2023.

“You wouldn’t believe how many quality players just think it’s a wack rule to have.”

The Yankee policy had formally stated, “All players, coaches and male executives are forbidden to display any facial hair other than mustaches (except for religious reasons), and scalp hair may not be grown below the collar.”

“Hair policy will remain the same,” Hal Steinbrenner said Friday.

Over the decades, the policy led to awkward conversations in which Yankee managers had to urge their often well-paid players to get a shave or a trim. Some disagreed with the rule, but George Steinbrenner’s word was law.

The policy also led to often-drastic transformations for bearded players who joined the Yankees from other teams.

Among those who shaved away facial hair upon arrival to the Yankees were Gerrit Cole in 2019, Nick Swisher in 2009 and Johnny Damon in 2006. Many other players grew beards back as soon as they were traded away from the team.

In 1981, Yankee pitcher Goose Gossage decided to grow his (permitted) mustache longer, as a way of flouting the ban. The resulting Fu Manchu-style ‘stache became his trademark.

As recently as a few days ago, the policy was in the news. Devin Williams, who joined the Yankees this offseason, had shaved his long-standing beard, but it began to grow back and could be seen in his official team photo, causing a minor kerfuffle.

Friday’s announcement ends, or at least modifies, a policy that affected so many generations of players that it developed its own lore.

In one oft-repeated tale, a Yankee player, Lou Piniella, pushed back on the edict, pointing out that Jesus had long hair and a beard.

George Steinbrenner replied, “Walk across that pond, and you can have a beard and long hair.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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