Don Mattingly banned facial hair for the Miami Marlins on Sunday, a significant move for the incoming coach.
"Guys will whine," Mattingly said,
according to The Associated Press. "Some guys like it, some guys won’t. As long as we’re consistent, I think it’s not that big of a deal."
In his coaching career, Mattingly has never imposed a rule banning facial hair, however he lived under such a rule as a player for the New York Yankees.
"Since the reign of George Steinbrenner, the Yankees have famously prohibited their players from wearing facial hair beyond mustaches, and from growing their hair long,"
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2013. "In the 1970s, the shave-up-or-ship-out policy was part of an effort to keep the hairy, wild members of the 'Bronx Zoo' World Series teams in check."
Mattingly broke the rule in 1991, and was famously benched for refusing to cut his hair. Back then, he said he staged a protest because the rule wasn't being enforced equitably among the players.
Marlins players seem thus far receptive to the rule, and amusedly so.
"I'm afraid I'm going to look 16," said 23-year-old Jose Fernandez, who shaved after reporting to camp. "But it's not a big deal. Whatever the rules are, we're going to follow them."
Reliever Mike Dunn, who shaved off his goatee, said, "Initially not too many guys were happy about it. You can fight it, or you don't. Obviously I shaved, so it's OK."
The Marlins haven't had a winning season since 2009, so perhaps they're more open to trying new things.
"Many felt the Marlins grossly underachieved last season, so perhaps Mattingly's idea is to engage his players right away and channel the response into a greater focus on the task at hand,"
wrote one journalist at Yahoo News.
"That's one possibility anyway. Another is that it's just a silly, outdated line of thinking that will fall flat and make Mattingly look more like a dictator than a manager."
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