Run, Jose! Run!
No, not around the bases. Away from your teammates. They're nuts.
I'd willingly endure the ostracism of 23 or 24 co-workers to retain my locks. I have very little going for me of a physical nature but at 44, I've got my hair and I'm keeping it until nature or something worse takes it. But nobody's coming for my head as far as I know (helps to be self-employed and in a profession that nobody tunes in to watch every night), so I'll get out of my own hair.
I don't mean to project my values onto those of a baseball team, especially one that just combed over Armando Benitez and took the rubber game in a ballpark where they used to take nothing but grief. I'm sure the Mets live a very different lifestyle from civilians like me and it entails a very different series of ethical decisions — and, as long as it's legal, I endorse whatever works to ensure the greater good.
That said, they're nuts with this head-shaving. What are they, twelve? Did they get tired of snapping towels at one another? Do they have any idea how they look? How Shawn Green looks? Poor guy, I want to lift him up by the ears and pour a drink from his head.
So my cap is off to you for saying no way, Jose. You don't need this tonsorial tsuris. You don't even need your cap. Don't let those bald bastards get your curls. They're yours. You're money.
Mets win! Mets win! I'm still thrilled, but they're still nuts.
Greg, you just reminded me of something Jay Leno said once, when a reporter asked him if bad reviews bothered him: “Listen, tell you what. I'll call you a moron and then hand you my paycheck and you see if you can handle it, okay?”
Does Shawn Green or anyone else on this team give a bat's buttock if shaving his head makes him look silly or not? Not for the dough they make, no sir. Players latch on to what they think will make them win, whether it's their favorite iced tea or their favorite unwashed stinky socks, and this was just one of those attacks of superstition that nearly the entire team seemed to have had en masse, the Joseman notwithstanding. But I'll bet the Joseman thinks his springy locks are what makes him hit, so he ain't giving them up for nothin.'
Probably nobody else currently on the team has hair that great that they'd miss it all that much. (Though I wonder about Lasto — he gets those braids of his clipped and down he goes.)
Anyway, if they win 12 in a row, you won't mind. It's just that the winning streak is young yet.
I'd rather root for a bald first-place team than nine David Cassidys who can't hit or can't pitch, that's for sure. And the “how you look” observation isn't a matter of my tastes because you can be sure that technically I don't care how or if they wear their hair.
But I'm thinking as a (presumably) typical person who likes having hair that I'd hate to give mine up because six or twenty other guys where I work decided it would be a hoot to remove theirs.
If they're having a blast, well, I retract everything I said. But one look at Green and, man, peer pressure's a bitch, regardless of what's in your envelope on the first and fifteenth of the month.
One bonus: maybe the Wright haters will stop calling him “pretty boy” now.
Oh wait, he's hitting again, they're all in hiding now.
“”Let me see, shave it! Let's go, come on!” one player yelled at a teammate in the bathroom area.”
Locker rooms are kind of gayer than gay dance clubs.
What an awesome couple of games, though! If this is what it takes to get it done then shave away, boys!
he's hitting again? who said he's hitting again?
I did, when he drove in the go-ahead runs today. It sounded like this: “Yay! Wright's hitting again!”
See no evil.
Locker rooms are kind of gayer than gay dance clubs.
That's my vote for line of the month. Still laughing….
yeah, he was 5/13 for this series, but 0/13 the previous 3 games. i definitely would love to see him get out of this slump, but it's too soon to say that he's hitting again. if he does well against the brew crew then i'll be convinced he's pretty much got it figured out.
IIRC, he has historically tatooed Milwaukee pitching in his admittedly short career…
Hi Greg,
As a Met fan I think the players going skinhead is great because it is so much a symbol of mates in synch with each other, a trait that is poorly lacking in baseball today. It's obvious the players did not do this as a fashion statement (since it doesn't make anybody look better) but rather in reaction to either their overall breakdown Monday night or overall poor play that led to several losses the past two weeks. This is so much better than pointing the finger at Shawn Green for his fielding, David Wright for runners left on base, Oliver Perez for not having the poise to regroup himself and Jose Reyes trying to look fancy in the field the other day (and he being the last holdout is hillarious).
While I'm with you (and not going to shave my hair off) just like last September (when Paul LoDuca and company came out and splattered us with a water hose to share in the division clinching celebration) I again feel this gesture goes from beyond the dugout and into the stands. Of course they didn't shave their heads for us but rather as a show of unity, however, it does make one forget how cold and business-like the sport has become and how great it is to root for those who care rather than a bunch of pretentious individuals.
Back in '87 or so while in college I grew a huge fu manchu in solidarity with my then-favorite Met HoJo. Unlike today, this was an era when like nobody had facial hair. Man, did I look ridiculous. This did not help with the ladies (and I needed all the help I could get), but I didn't care. If it was good enough for HoJo, good enough for me. I also drank a lot of iced tea.
20 years later, I won't be making a similar gesture.
Unspecific to David, but historically, everybody has tattooed Milwaukee pitching.
Anybody notice who's starting for the first-place Brewers Friday night? Jeff Suppan.
Got any hair left to cut?
Okay, you got me. I have a tendency to declare the darkness over at the first sign of light. I'm less a realist than a hopefulist.
Still, he DOES look a little better, no? Even if the stats don't bear it out, he doesn't look totally lost and desperate at the plate anymore. At least to my eyes.
Heheheh, thanks Jace. I first had that thought when I read about the whole “Greg Maddux zanily peeing on people” thing.
Tangentially, is it me or has Greg Maddux undergone some kind of personality replacement surgery? He appears to be morphing gradually into David Wells.