Marlins To Lift Ban on Players' Beards
Does it even matter what you look like when no one shows up to your games or hardly watches them on television? Probably not.
Maybe the Marlins finally realized this. The team is officially loosening some its long standing rules that restricted player's facial hair.
The Marlins have had a pretty consistent grooming policy that forbid both beards and longer hair for years.
Jose Reyes famously had to cut his trademark dreads when he was signed by the team back in 2011, only to be traded away little more than a season later.
Though, in recent years the team has tolerated goatees as long as they're well groomed. Now management is extended that tolerance to full beards as well.
"This year, we're going to let them have beards, but they have to keep it trimmed up," manager Mike Redmond said according to MLB.com. "We just don't want it to be sloppy."
Scruffier facial hair styles have come back into fashion in the mainstream lately as well. Procter & Gambles has even announced that razor sales are down due to the trend.
So the team is just keeping with the times.
Redmond later joked that because the team's average age is one of the youngest in the league, there's only a few players on the roster who can grow a full beard anyway.
No word on whether the team is considering lifting their longstanding ban on allowing players to have talent as well.