Jeffrey Loria Yields on Dictatorial Beard Policy

Via the Miami Herald:

For the first time since Jeffrey Loria took over as owner in 2002, Marlins players will be permitted to grow and wear beards, but only as long as they're neat.

"This year we're going to let them have beards, but they have to keep them trimmed up, and the hair, too," said manager Mike Redmond. "We just don't want it to look sloppy."

Not that kind of beard

Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria has long disdained hirsute ballplayers (one of his many personality traits plagiarizing George Steinbrenner). Credit for Loria's change of heart goes to Jarrod Saltalamacchia, who told him the preponderance of beards in the Boston Red Sox clubhouse helped bond teammates in 2013.

"You can use it as chemistry like we did last year when everyone started doing it," Salty reportedly told Loria.

Automatic skeptical of the word "chemistry"

A nonsense policy undone by nonsense logic. I don't know why you'd want a thick layer of hair over your face during a 90-degree day game in June, but if it makes the players happy then the Diehards approve.

Read more...

Must Read

The wonderful Ian of The Blue Jay Hunter, a fellow BBA blog, posted his roundup of the best baseball mustaches of the first half. Check it out. There are, of course, no Marlins on the list, since Jeffrey Loria believes in the Steinbrennerian fallacy that no baseball team can win a title if its members have excess facial hair.

UPDATE: Ian dropped by in the comments to tell us about Taylor Tankersley's glorious fu manchu (below). I totally missed it, which can happen if you don't watch many games on television (I'm very dedicated to this blogging stuff, as you know). According to this piece from Joe Frisaro, Tankersley's 'stache somehow complies with the Marlins' facial hair policy (though he did have to trim it a bit to pass muster with Fredi Gonzalez). So at least Marlins fans have something to be proud of at the All-Star break (besides Josh Johnson, of course).

Read more...