Marlins grooming policy again

Mike Berardino mentioned this article in his shared blog.  While I'm not, generally, David Hyde's biggest fan, he most definitely addresses the Marlins grooming policy in more detail.

Hanley Ramirez, the lone Marlin with five stars to his resume, walked through Thursday morning's clubhouse with a message written across his chest in Sharpie.

"I'm sick of this s---," it read.

He was serious. "I'm angry," he said.

A quiet day of spring was turning loud.

"I want to be traded," Ramirez soon said.

No, he doesn't. Not really. And by the end of this column the temperature will cool down. But it's never good when your best player entered Thursday's game batting .091 for the spring and blamed it on some silly organizational decrees.

For a while, Hanley vs. Marlinssounded like The Mane Event of spring. Ramirez, see, used to wear his hair in cornrows.

"I had to cut it," he said.

He also had to take off the jewelry dangling from his neck while playing.

"It's incredible," he said an hour later in the dugout, still angry. "We're big-leaguers."

I still don't get the in order to be professional you need to look like an investment banker.  (No, I don't plan to go into the nation's problem with investment banks.  Though I could write volumes about it.)

Normally, when a team decides everyone needs to look like a business man it is the last bastion of desperation.

Baseball player's personalities for the most part are very similar to those of professional poker players.  In other words, they are kinda strange, bordering on being a wacko.  Example: Cody Ross was, in his past life, a rodeo clown.  Now really, how many of us consider doing such.

If you have ever read the book Trading, Sex & Dying , which was once known by the title of Poker, Sex & Dying, you would come to the conclusion very quickly that most baseball players are not of the "Worker Moralist" personalities.  Which is of course, what most people in the working world are.

Baseball players, don't really know how they do what they do.  This can bring a level of anxiety.  But is something they live with on a daily basis.  Oh sure, they can look at video to try to help correct problems.  But when you're batting or on the mound, if you are thinking about mechanics you will soon be seated in the dugout or end up in the minor leagues or even worse, out of the game altogether.

So what does the above have to do with a team's grooming policy?  A bunch if they are mainly made up of mainly young players.  Letting a young player wear his hair, or whatever, in a way that makes him feel more comfortable, then let him.  He has enough to deal with mentally and adding on a stupid dress code isn't helping in the least. 

I have more to say on the subject and could go into more philosophizing but I save you from that.