The New York Yankees are removing their ban on facial hair, a policy that has stood for nearly 50 years. Previously, team rules forbade players, coaches and other staffers from sporting beards unless they were maintained for religious reasons.
“We will be amending our expectations to allow our players and uniformed personnel to have well-groomed beards moving forward,” Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner said in a statement. “It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy.”
The policy was codified in 1976, three years after Hal’s father, George, purchased the franchise, as he believed that the edict would instill more discipline upon the players. Although other MLB teams have their own policies regarding players’ appearances, the Yankees were the strictest; George’s policy said their players would only be clean-shaven or allowed to have trimmed mustaches with no other facial hair.
Additionally, players could not have long hair, making for some dramatic changes when Johnny Damon, Jason Giambi, Randy Johnson and other free agents signed with the team at different points in their careers.
There were fits of rebellion from several of the team’s stars when the policy was first implemented, including from the late catcher Thurman Munson. “The players can joke about it, as long as they do it,” George Steinbrenner told The New York Times in 1978. “If they don’t do it, we’ll try to find a way to accommodate them somewhere else. I want to develop pride in the players as Yankees. If we can get them to feel that way and think that way, fine. If they can’t, we’ll get rid of them.”
The tradition was so strict that the team’s legendary first baseman Don Mattingly was removed from a game in 1991 for not appearing well-kept to the team’s standard.
As players recently reported for spring training, it appears that there had been some relaxing of the rules. Reliever Devin Williams, who was traded to the team from Milwaukee for starting pitcher Nestor Cortes and infielder Caleb Durbin, was seen sporting some 5 o’clock shadow in his official team photo on Wednesday. A free agent after this season, the closer is due to make $8.6 million in 2025.
