Michael Kay calls Yankees new facial hair policy a ‘seismic change’ that ‘stunned the baseball world’

It’s officially the end of an era in Major League Baseball. Beginning this season, New York Yankees players will be allowed to grow well-groomed beards.

Don’t ever let anyone complain about baseball being slow to make changes or adopt new policies again, when it only took the Yankees 49 years to legalize well-groomed beards in their clubhouse. Yankees owner Hal Steinbrenner made the announcement Friday morning, which gave longtime play-by-play voice Michael Kay a chance to react during their first TV broadcast of Spring Training on YES Network.

“A change in policy that, I don’t think it’s hyperbole, kind of stunned the baseball world…it’s a seismic change.” – Michael Kay on new facial hair policy for Yankees. pic.twitter.com/ZeIuXp8LzN

— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) February 21, 2025

“A change in policy that, I don’t think it’s hyperbole, kind of stunned the baseball world,” Kay said Friday afternoon. “It’s a seismic change.”

Steinbrenner said he made the decision to allow well-groomed beards after speaking to current and former Yankees.

“I think the most telling thing that he said,” Kay began to note of Steinbrenner’s statement, “Is ‘We don’t want to ever be in a position where we lose a player that we think can help us win because he didn’t want to come here because of this rule.’ And I think what the Yankees did…they got ahead of things – and I’ve always wondered – if you’re going to change the rule, you almost have to change the rule before somebody fights back on it.”

The Yankees got ahead of things and changed their 49-year-old grooming policy. A policy Kay previously defended when he criticized a bat boy for having long hair while wearing the Yankees’ pinstripes by noting “rules are rules.” Rules that were instilled in 1976, when then-Yankees owner George Steinbrenner introduced the team’s “Neatness Counts” policy, outlawing players from having beards, beads, mutton chops, or long hair.

Nearly a half-century later, the Yankees have modernized their outdated grooming rules to tolerate well-groomed beards moving forward.

It seems silly to credit the Yankees for finally amending such a ridiculous rule, but Kay is right in noting it was a good thing for them to make the change before any players attempted to publicly dispute it. And while they haven’t lost any star players over the policy, it doesn’t seem like a coincidence that this change is occurring after the Yankees were unable to resign Juan Soto.

To be clear, Soto did not leave the Yankees because of their grooming policy. But Soto is one of the first free agents the Yankees were unable to sign. Throughout the free agency era, if there’s a player the Yankees wanted, they usually got him. Soto leaving the Yankees shows the playing fields have been leveled. And if that’s the case, the Yankees would be doing themselves a disservice by entering another round of free agency with any sort of outdated rules that might put them at a disadvantage.

But the days of the Yankees being at a disadvantage are now over. Forget about pitch clock rules, robot umpires or new-age media rights deals, the modern era of Major League Baseball is here in the name of well-groomed beards in pinstripes.