Yankees Beard Policy Kept Free Agents Away, $6 Million Infielder Confirms

Just a few days into spring training this year, on February 26, the New York Yankees announced that they were ending a team tradition that had been in place for nearly 50 years. The 27-time World Series winning franchise would no longer, managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner said, require players to shave off their beards. 

One of the reasons that the Yankees decided to ditch the seemingly archaic policy, Steinbrenner said, was that the no-beards rule may have prevented the Yankees from acquiring players who could otherwise contribute to the team’s primary job of winning baseball games. 

Since the facial hair edict was handed down by Steinbrenner’s father George Steinbrenner, the team’s now-legendary owner who controlled the Yankees from his purchase of the team in 1973 until his death on 2010 at age 80. Steinbrenner controlled a group of investors who purchased the historic team — which had already won 20 World Series at that time, but none since 1962 — for $10 million, the equivalent of about $72.3 million today. The actual value of the Yankees franchise today is estimated at $7.55 billion, according to Forbes.

George Steinbrenner Tries to Instill ‘Order and Discipline’

But the elder Steinbrenner, who initially said that he “won’t be active in the day-to-day operations of the club at all,” was not entirely happy with his purchase and quickly took a heavily hands-on approach to running the club. In 1976, he implemented a policy banning Yankees players from wearing beards — though mustaches were permitted — and from growing their hair down to their collars.

Though he claimed he had no objection to long hair, he handed down the grooming policy to instill a “certain sense of order and discipline in the ball club.” Whether it achieved that goal is difficult to say. The Yankees won the World Series in 1977 and again in 1978, but those championships may have come in spite of Steinbrenner’s attempt at “order and discipline” rather than because of it — as the title of Yankees relief pitcher Sparky Lyle’s book about the 1978 season would indicate. 

Lyle titled his book, which spent seven months on the New York Times bestseller list,  The Bronx Zoo.

In announcing that the policy would be lifted, and that “well-groomed” facial hair would be permitted, Hal Steinbrenner said that he felt his late father’s policy had become “outdated” and “somewhat unreasonable” in addition to acting as a deterrent to some players signing with the Yankees.

Bearded Veteran Avoided Yankees Due to Policy

Earlier this week, one recently signed free agent appeared to confirm that the policy discouraged players from joining the Yankees. Just two days after Steinbrenner announced that the beard policy would be relaxed, veteran third-baseman and two-time All-Star Justin Turner signed a one-year, $6 million contract with the Chicago Cubs. 

Though the Yankees remain in need of a third baseman as well as a power threat to fill in for injured DH Giancarlo Stanton, both roles that Turner could have filled, the 40-year-old former Los Angeles Dodger known for his bushy, bright orange beard said that he avoided the Yankees due to the facial hair policy, according to New York Post MLB insider columnist Jon Heyman. Turner continued to have questions about the new policy, saying he did not understand what the Yankees meant by “well-groomed.”

“I’d need a definition,” Turner told Heyman.

Turner is not the first player to shun the Yankees due to the no-beard policy. While the exact number can never be certain, 2012 American League Cy Young winner David Price said the year after winning the award that he would refuse to play for the Yankees due to the policy. 

“Those rules, that’s old-school baseball. I was born in ’85,” Price said at the time. “That’s not for me. That’s not something I want to be a part of.”

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