For the Yankees, Clint Frazier’s haircut is counterproductive

Photo via The Informer

As many Yankees fans will know by now, Clint Frazier was forced to cut his hair this past Friday. According to Joe Girardi, Frazier’s hair did not violate the team policy of nothing below the shoulders, but it was “distracting.” Frazier later tweeted this:

one goal - to be the best baseball player i can be. happy to be a yankee & play for this organization & honored to donate to Locks of Love 🦁

— Clint Frazier (@clintfrazier) March 10, 2017

…of which, of course he did. Twitter was blowing up at the time, and it would not have been a good idea for Frazier to say anything else. However, I have a few thoughts on this whole debate.

A distraction? Really?

Calling Frazier’s hair a distraction is a huge cop out in my opinion. Yes, it was easily visible, and the fact that his hair is bright made makes it much more noticeable, but come on, a distraction? Who is getting distracted by it? If someone like an opposing pitcher is focusing more on Frazier’s hair than pitching to him, then that’s a problem for the pitcher, not on Frazier. I feel like whoever monitors the hair these days, whether it’s Jennifer Steinbrenner or others, felt like Frazier’s hair was too long and unprofessional looking and wanted an excuse for him to cut it. That’s it.

Photo Credit: Andrew Savulich | NY Daily News

Forcing Frazier to cut his hair is incredibly counterproductive.

Since July, the Yankees have been a transitioning team, moving on from its aging players and giving younger ones a chance to perform. The team is much more exciting now than it has been in a while. Fans now can look forward to watching Gary Sanchez, Aaron Judge, Frazier, Gleyber Torres, and others potentially blossom into stars. That’s exciting! And what makes this exciting is the fact that all of these players are young and personable. The team has been boring the past few years, and the addition of these young players has changed the entire outlook of the organization. However, forcing Frazier to cut his hair kind of takes away from all of that. Frazier was known for his bushy red hair, just like Judge is known for his 6'7" frame. Forcing Frazier to get rid of his hair takes away from part of the excitement of him as a player. He’s still going to be incredibly exciting, just not as much as he could be, all because the Yankees need to uphold a 40-year-old tradition.

Maybe I’m crazy, and blowing this whole thing out of proportion. But the hair policy has been around since the 70s, when the Steinbrenners first bought the team. However, the Yankees are a new team now, in a new time period. Just let the kids be themselves. The team has been way too boring these past few years, and they aren’t helping themselves.

Article by: Alex Weir

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