The Dictatorship
The New York Yankees will now let players wear beards — it’s about time
New York Yankees managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner announced Friday that the team’s players and personnel will henceforth be permitted to wear “well-groomed beards.” So ends a silly, archaic tradition that was made up by his father, George Steinbrennershortly after an ownership group he led bought the team in 1973.
The Yankees’ grooming regulations still prohibit long and unkempt hair, facial or otherwise. But as the younger Steinbrenner put it in a statement“It is the appropriate time to move beyond the familiar comfort of our former policy.”
A crucial aspect of the creation of this tradition is that ‘The Boss’ was never much of a baseball guy.
Facial hair has come and gone and come again over a century and a half of baseball, and by the mid-20th century, beards were mostly out of favor. Some teams even formalized their follicle prohibitions. But then came the cultural upheaval of the 1960s and beards and longer hair on men were au courant. By the 1970s, Oakland Athletics owner Charlie Finley was paying his players bonuses for growing mustaches. During the same period, the once-dominant Yankees were in the doldrums, but their young stars like Thurman Munson and Sparky Lyle sported beards and handlebar mustaches. Oscar Gamble had to cut his famously thick afro to play for the Yankees.
Steinbrenner’s arrival put an end to the fun. A crucial aspect of the creation of this tradition is that “The Boss” was never much of a baseball guy. He was a former assistant football coach at Northwestern and Purdue Universities and seemed to assume that the discipline of gridiron coaching applied to professional baseball. He clashed with Yankees manager Billy Martin over many things, but among the silliest was his insistence that Martin and his coaches ride the team bus with the players, simply because that was how it was done in college football.
Although some Yankee haters would derisively characterize them as Wall Street’s teamplenty of Yankees fans are proud to own that image, taking comfort in a buttoned-down, clean-cut, corporate sheen on their favorite ballplayers. But there are also a great many, myself included, who grew up not even realizing we were the white-collar conservatives of baseball.
I was a 1980s and ’90s kid who listened to Phil Rizzuto’s charming ramblings as he called games on Channel 11. We supported teams that typically offered little more than bad vibes and middling results. When lucky enough to trek to Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, we were generally surrounded by slovenly working-class loudmouths in the bleachers, not hedge fund clients only there for the luxury suite lobster and single malt scotch. It was a different time, when guys like Matt Nokes and Steve Balboni were some of the top-producing hitters. The coming Derek Jeter- and Mariano Rivera-led dynasty — and the ostentatious class warfare driven by booming revenues — wasn’t even a gleam in our eye.
A lot of us were not even aware of the Yankees’ grooming policy until 1991, when Steinbrenner ordered beloved first baseman and captain Don Mattingly to be benched and fined for refusing to trim his hair from a stylish-for-its-time mullet length. The humiliation of “Donnie Baseball” — the mild-mannered Indiana native and the only consistently great Yankees star during that miserable fallow period — was as public as it was absurd. The incident even inspired a classic “Simpsons” episode in which Mr. Burns kicked Mattingly off his team of softball ringers for having long sideburns, even after shaving both sides of his head. As the animated Mattingly walks off the field, he mutters“Still like him better than Steinbrenner.”
The Yankees are big on flaunting their “traditions” — with 22 retired numbers, an annual Old-Timers’ Dayand murals commemorating all 27 championship-winning teams around the stadium concourse. But unlike “no names on the back of the uniform” and Bob Sheppard — the stadium’s PA announcer for 56 years — the beard ban was always a contrived tradition, created by an owner imposing his own value system and decreeing it as “the Yankee way.”
Winning and money have a way of making guys forget how much they hate to shave.
While some players have said they’d be reluctant to sign with the Yankees because of the beard ban, they are professionals and money typically talks. Examples abound, but few are more prominent than outfielder Johnny Damonwho spent four successful years as a shaggy sex symbol with the Boston Red Sox, then signed a big free agent contract with the Yankees before the 2006 season, dutifully shaved his beard and cut his hair for four successful years as a “cleans up nicely” member of the Bronx Bombers.
Winning and money have a way of making guys forget how much they hate to shave. But because you can never please everybody, despite the widespread mockery the Yankees’ grooming policies have invited around MLB, news of the policy change left some non-Yankees players lamenting the loss of “tradition.”
I can only speak for myself, but as a dyed-in-the-wool pinstripes fan since birth, watching tightly coiffed, fresh-faced players has never meant a thing to me. I just want the team to win. And if evolving even slightly with the times makes it easier to sign young and increasingly independent-minded players, that’s a victory. Losing the corporate look is no great loss.
Anthony L. Fisher is a senior editor and writer for BLN Daily. He was previously the senior opinion editor for The Daily Beast and a politics columnist for Business Insider.
A federal judge who was disciplined after an investigation found that she had sex with a police officer in her chambers and attended a partisan event, then lied when confronted with the allegations, has recused herself in a fight over Georgia election records after the U.S. Department of Justice raised questions about her ability to be impartial.
The Justice Department sought to remove U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross from the case, citing her reported attendance at an event for Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who prosecuted President Donald Trump. Ross on Tuesday filed an order recusing herself, writing that she was doing so “out of an abundance of caution for the potential perception of bias.”
The Justice Department had sued Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger seeking an unredacted statewide voter list, and Ross was presiding over that case.
“Both the Trump administration’s present and Willis’s past efforts have become heavily polarized,” Ross wrote, explaining that she “cannot discount” that an objective observer might interpret her attendance at an event sponsored by Willis’ campaign as support for the district attorney’s position, even if she only went to see former colleagues.
Ross received a “private reprimand” after a court investigation found that she had sex in the courthouse with a high-ranking uniformed police officer within earshot of staff, attended a partisan event and then initially lied to deny the allegations.
The investigation report says Ross went to an event hosted by a district attorney’s campaign. The judge said the district attorney had been a friend since 1999 and acknowledged having gone to the a private mixer held on the sidelines of the event to visit with former colleagues in the district attorney’s office.
Ross previously worked in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and overlapped there with Willis there before Willis was district attorney.
Willis in August 2023 obtained an indictment against Trump and 18 others, accusing them of participating in a wide-ranging scheme to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results. That case was ultimately dismissed in November.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is rallying support within the State Department to help secure a visa for the mother of a World Cup goalkeeper who was unable to attend her newly-famous son’s match in the United States.
Jeffries learned of the situation after Republic of Cabo Verde goalkeeper Josimar Dias helped his team secure a 0-0 draw with Spain during the island nation’s World Cup debut on Monday. Dias stunned fans after making seven saves against the 2010 World Cup champions.
Dias told ESPN that his mother was unable to attend the match in the U.S. because of difficulties obtaining a visa.
“She didn’t manage to be here because of the visa,” Dias said in press conference after the match, noting that the World Cup was the “most important moment of our lives.”
“The money we have to pay for the visa, we didn’t manage on time. And I would like her to be here,” the goalie said.
After learning of Dias’ story, Jeffries said he reached out to Secretary of State Marco Rubio in hopes of helping the goalie’s mother attend Cabo Verde’s the next match in the U.S.
“No mother should miss the chance to see her child make history,” Jeffries wrote on X.
The Cabo Verde national football team shocked Spain on the strength of a historic performance by goalkeeper Vozinha.
His Mom was unable to be there because of visa complications.
No mother should miss the chance to see her child make history.
I have asked Secretary of State…
— Hakeem Jeffries (@RepJeffries) June 16, 2026
In an effort to prevent visitors from overstaying their visas, the U.S. State Department requires that eligible travelers from certain countries, including Cabo Verde, “must post a bond for $5,000, $10,000, or $15,000.”
The Department said that it will waive those visa bond requirements during the 2026 World Cup for “athletes and team members — including coaches, persons performing a necessary support role, and immediate relatives — who are nationals of countries that are competing,” provided that they meet all visa requirements.
While Dias suggested money was a factor for his mother’s inability to attend the match, a State Department official told MS NOW that it has no record of her applying for one. The official said all relatives of players are eligible for visa bond waivers, and said the State Department is attempting to help with the matter.
Dias, known to fans as Vozinha, is significantly older than most players at 40 years old. Nevertheless, he was named FIFA’s “player of the match.”
After his standout World Cup performance, his following on his Instagram page grew from about 10,000 before Monday’s game to more than 10.5 million by Tuesday.
Cabo Verde’s next match is against Uruguay in Miami on Sunday.
Erum Salam is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW, with a focus on how global events and foreign policy shape U.S. politics. She previously was a breaking news reporter for The Guardian.
President Donald Trump celebrating his 80th birthday with UFC fights on the White House lawn was classless enough. Then Josh Hokit was given a microphone. After the UFC fighter won his cage match at Trump’s flamboyant celebration Sunday night, Hokit, who spoke mostly in disturbingly trite rhymes after his win, managed to further degrade the event. At the conclusion of his post-fight interview with announcer, podcaster and manosphere extraordinaire Joe Rogan, the athlete declared,“Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?”
Many in the crowd of thousands of UFC fans ate it up, and expecting anything less would require an exceptional level of delusion. Misogynoir and transphobia have been lobbed against Obama at least since 2008, when America elected her husband, Barack Obama, president.
Misogynoir and transphobia have been lobbed against Obama at least since 2008, when America elected her husband, Barack Obama, president.
Misogynoir was coined by academic Moya Bailey in 2008 to describe the intertwining of racism and misogyny that targets Black women. As pervasive as it is, it took 15 yearsfor Merriam-Webster to add the word to its dictionary. Even in writing this piece, each time I’ve typed the term, spell-check suggests I have made a typo.
While it’s tempting to categorize Hokit’s remark as random, it was fully on brand for the athlete. ESPN reported, “In his post-fight interview at UFC 324 in January, Hokit called WNBA star Brittney Griner ‘a man.’”
He’s the poster child for misogynoir.
But his statement was also characteristic of the machismo that drove the event itself. Trump’s entire political persona is crafted in the mold of a strongmanan archetype that couldn’t exist without toxic masculinity. And when he was elected to the presidency a second time, Trump brought back to the forefront an erroneous vision of manhood. Hokit, and a lamentable number of other public figures, have since been empowered to espouse misogyny and preach the shallow gospel of toxic masculinity.
But showmanshiprepressed emotionality and a desperate adherence to benighted notions of manhood alone don’t suffice. Toxic masculinity also requires an allegiance to the desirability politics that are often informed by white supremacy. And Hokit gave it a shoutout Sunday night.
If toxic masculinity is a declaration of what we are expected to perceive as a quintessential depiction of manhood, then completing that picture requires a similar declaration about what we are expected to perceive as a quintessential depiction of womanhood. As has historically been the case, the beauty of Black women, as a whole, doesn’t align with mainstream ideals of attractiveness. So a Trump supporter’s recycling of a racist trope about the first Black first lady being a man was a natural offshoot of Sunday’s glorification of problematic masculinity.
Obama addressed misogynoir-laden and transphobic insults, among others, that she has faced over the years in her 2018 book “Becoming.” She writes, “I’ve smiled for photos with people who call my husband horrible names on national television, but still want a framed keepsake for their mantel. I’ve heard about the swampy parts of the internet that question everything about me, right down to whether I’m a woman or a man. A sitting U.S. congressman has made fun of my butt. I’ve been hurt. I’ve been furious. But mostly, I’ve tried to laugh this stuff off.”
I’ve been furious. But mostly, I’ve tried to laugh this stuff off.
michelle obama in her book “becoming”
Hokit thumping his chest after a violent brawl per the request of a strongman-in-chief, then deriding a high-profile Black female figure as masculine and thus, unappealing, was a true full-circle moment for the manosphere. Notice that Hokit didn’t do a full stop after he insulted Obama. He asked, “Am I right, America?”
At least that part made actual sense — Hokit’s instinct to seek validation is yet another manifestation of toxic masculinity. His question offered a boisterous representation of the need for male approval that exists in the manosphere and the willingness of problematic men to give one another an outsized influence on their behavior. It wasn’t enough for Hokit to disparage a prominent Black woman. He wanted someone to say, “Well done.”
As for his question, the answer is “no.” Hokit was the farthest from “right” as one gets. But the derision of Obama surely scored him brownie points in the manosphere. What better way to secure a nod of respect from the community than to denigrate, arguably, the most high-profile Black woman in the United States while at an event teeming with hypermasculinity?
But neither Obama nor any other woman, Black or otherwise, should have to bear the burden of men insulting them in a desperate quest to secure approbation from other men.
Hokit appears to be developing a habit of ascribing masculinity to Black women. He would be better served by questioning why his idea of manhood includes belittling women for applause.
Zahara Hill is a coordinating producer for MS NOW. She previously worked as a front page editor for HuffPost and the deputy editor for Blavity News.
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