Former Yankees outfielder Cameron Maybin believes the club’s rule against facial hair hurts the team when it comes to signing free agents.
“This might be an unpopular take to Yankees fans, but you’d be surprised how much more attractive the Yankees would be if they got rid of that facial hair rule,” Maybin, an ex-YES Network announcer, wrote in a post on X Thursday.
“You wouldn’t believe how many quality players just think it’s a wack rule to have. I mean cmon we’re coming up on 2024 let that go already, and I swear it would be more appealing. Again this only comes from conversations I’ve had and experience from actually Playing.”
Then-Yankees owner George Steinbrenner implemented the facial hair policy in 1976.
“I have nothing against long hair per se,” Steinbrenner said at the time. “But I’m trying to instill certain sense of order and discipline in the ball club because I think discipline is important in an athlete.”
“They can joke about it as long as they do it. 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 policy cost the Yankees three-time All-Star reliever Brian Wilson, when the Giant and Dodger closer wouldn’t shave his iconic beard to come to the Bronx following the 2013 season.
Around the same time, then-Rays star pitcher David Price said he would never sign with the Yankees because of the policy though the following year he backtracked and said he would shave if the Yankees were to acquire him.
Andrew McCutchen, the 2013 NL MVP as a member of the Pirates, joined the Yankees late in 2018 and was made to shave his beard.
“I definitely do think it takes away from our individualism as players and as people,” McCutchen said in 2020. “We express ourselves in different ways.”
He added, “I feel like maybe there should be some change there in the future — who knows when — but it’s just one of the many things in this game that I feel that there just needs … it needs to be talked about, and to be addressed.”
Yankees icon Don Mattingly was famously benched in 1991 for refusing to get a haircut but must have come around to the policy because he instituted a similar one when managing the Marlins in 2016.
Maybin played with the Yankees in 2019, one of ten teams he played for in his 15-year career. He also called games for YES in 2022.
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