Things tend to come full circle.
On Sunday, Yahoo Sports reported that Don Mattingly has adopted a no-facial hair policy for his Miami Marlins.
Question is ... did this policy have more to do with late New York Yankees owner George Steinbrenner or Mr. Burns from The Simpsons?
Steinbrenner's infamous no-facial-hair policy was arguably never in as many headlines as it was in 1991, when then-Yankee Mattingly refused to trim down his hairstyle and was subsequently suspended by the storied Major League Baseball franchise.
Although Mattingly was eventually reinstated, holding onto his famous mustache, the event had legs of its own, including The Simpsons episode which touched on the Steinbrenner-Mattingly debacle using Mr. Burns and Mattingly himself.
The episode "Homer at the Bat" had an animated Mr. Burns repeatedly warning Mattingly to shave his sideburns.
"Mattingly! Get rid of those sideburns?" Mr. Burns yells in the then-Yankees first baseman's face.
"What sideburns?" Mattingly says.
"You heard me, hippie!" Mr. Burns screams.
The exchange happens a couple times more in the episode, with Mr. Burns increasingly becoming angrier upon the sight of Mattingly's flowing locks from the side of his cap.
Well, when it's time for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball team to take the field, Mr. Burns sees that Mattingly finally took heed, but literally ... shaving off his sideburns completely, leaving the middle of his head bald.
"Mattingly! I thought I told you to trim those sideburns. Go home! You're off the team ... for good!" Burns shrieks.
"Fine," Mattingly said, walking off the diamond. "I still like him better than Steinbrenner."
Wow. Still, 25 years later and Mattingly, who formerly coached the Los Angeles Dodgers and is entering his first season as the manager of the Marlins, is singing a completely different tune ... one closer to matching that of the late Steinbrenner and Mr. Burns.
"Guys will whine. Some guys like it, some guys won't. As long as we're consistent, I think it's not that big of a deal," Mattingly told Yahoo on Sunday.
And what are the players' reactions?
"I'm afraid I'm going to look 16," Marlins' star pitcher Jose Fernandez said. "But it's not a big deal. Whatever the rules are, we're going to follow them."
