"The matter of Frazier’s hair speaks to a deeper issue for the Yankees and baseball in general.
Frazier, who could be a starter this season, is viewed as being central to the Yankees’ youth movement, and with his hair and provocative personality, he might offer a jolt of enthusiasm largely absent from Yankee Stadium these days.
Attendance, television ratings and the fan following for the Yankees have been in steady decline in recent years, as the team has played only one playoff game since 2012. Magnetic performers like Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera and Alex Rodriguez have retired.
Across town, the Mets stand in sharp relief: an ascendant World Series contender and increasingly popular on television, the team is built around a dynamic young pitching rotation. The Mets’ two headliners, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom, sport shoulder-length hair that is decidedly un-Yankee-like and both celebrated and mimicked by fans.
The two teams — and their hirsute styling — may stand as proxies for the push and pull that baseball is going through, trying to speed up the game to lure young, attention-starved fans without alienating older, tradition-bound ones.
How to embrace tradition without being a slave to it?"
The only thing that matters is Ws and Ls.
Shoulder-length hair is not why Mets fans celebrate Syndergaard and deGrom.
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