I have always thought that personal grooming policies in Major League Baseball are archaic. You are telling a kid in his 20s that to play for your team you need to have close cropped hair and no facial hair. The Yankees are famous for this, even being spoofed on “The Simpsons” when Mr. Burns brought in a bunch of ringers to play softball and made Don Mattingly trim his sideburns so high that he had a weird reverse sideways mohawk.
As dumb as I think the rule it, if there is one team that you can forgive for having it, it’s the Yankees. Baseball fans are creatures of habit and seeing clean shaven players in the classic pinstripes is just the way things are. I would just be interested to see what would happen if Albert Pujols had wanted to play for the Yankees and he had shoulder length hair.
But the Miami Marlins? Really?
You unveil a new stadium, bright new uniforms and claim that you are a vibrant exciting young team in tune with the city your new name represents, and one of the first orders of business is to make your newly signed superstar shortstop cut off his dreadlocks.
For his part, Jose Reyes has always said that he would follow the rule. He even took it a step further, agreeing to get his hair cut live on MLB Network and then donating the it to the Make-A-Wish Foundation who is selling it on ebay.
You can see the video below.
At the time of this writing, the bag of hair is selling for $4050 at this link
From MLB.com
“It’s going to be a little bit emotional, because I’ve spent three years with this hair,” Reyes said shortly before sitting in a barber chair set up in the studio. “At the same time, I understand it’s a rule of my new team, the Miami Marlins. I’m a team player, so I have to cut it off.”
The Marlins signed Reyes to a six-year, $106 million contract in December.