1 week Ago
Nearly half a century after the New York Yankees were denied the right to wear beards or their hair long on baseball diamonds, a revolution! Now they may wear long hair. Beards too. But there’s a catch.
Beards must be well-groomed. And no, players will not get half a day off during practice to groom beards. Sportsmen and beards have a long history.
For reasons ranging from superstition to health and from laziness to team style, sportsmen have worn beards. The IPL generation might not remember W. G.
Grace’s contribution to cricket, but they are likely to know about his beard. Or if they don’t, they need only to check out Hashim Amla who wore the best Grace beard. The Indian team is full of pogonophiles (beard enthusiasts).
Probably inspired by Virat Kohli, they see the beard as crucial to the team look. The clean-shaven stand out, and no one wants that. In the 1970s, long sideburns were the mark of an Indian cricketer.
Farokh Engineer, Bhagwat Chandrasekhar, S. Venkataraghavan, Erapalli Prasanna, Ajit Wadekar, Tiger Pataudi all sported them. That was the team look then.
The superstitious (and which athlete isn’t?) believe that beards bring luck. Perhaps they scored a goal when they had one or claimed five wickets or effected a stunning forehand crosscourt shot.Perhaps they believe that Kohli’s strength lies in his beard and that’s the way to go.
Following the manner of senior, successful players is not unheard of. Many decide not to shave when on tour. Some see it as necessary for thermal insulation, to soften the sun’s rays; perhaps even UV protection.
Then there is the question of branding. Mike Brearley, the England captain once grew a beard that drew the nickname ‘Khomeini’. Apparently a razor blade company offered to pay a small fortune to have him use their product to shave it off.
Brearley declined. The Olympic gold-winning Italian high jumper Gianmarco Tamberi goes one step further (or back, depending on how you look at it) with his half beard. “I like to entertain the audience,” he told a reporter.
It is usually his left cheek that carries the beard while the right is clean-shaven. Swimmers shave bodily hair before competition to reduce water resistance or drag; cyclists, so the body hair doesn’t act like Velcro if they fall from their cycles. It prevents gravel rash too.
It may or may not help sprinters gain speed, but the psychological certainty is enough. In the 1990s, the Yankees benched Don Mattingly for refusing to cut his mullet. The memorable headline in the New York Times said, Mattingly Chooses Seat on Yank Bench Over Barber’s Chair .
So the current change is significant. It wasGeorge Steinbrenner, the owner of the team who laid down that rule; his son Hal has reversed it. But the ‘no hair over the collar’ rule remains.
As one player said of the beard policy,“It allows for some individual freedom and a few less razor burns.’‘ Any reason is a good reason in beard country. Comments Latest on Sportstar.
