Bearded Men in Red Sox (a fashion rebellion)

Recently I noticed my nephew, formerly a clean cut, fairly conservative college kid had adopted a shaggy look, a goatee and long, wavy hair. The hair growth gave him the rough-hewn look of a Viking warrior, a Norseman. The increased facial hair got my attention. He must be searching for a new identity, I thought. The hair made him look older and added gravity to his presence. Then I noticed the the look of players on the Boston Red Sox as they battle in the American League baseball playoffs. The Red Sox players have such extreme beard growth the look borders on the comical. No, make that comical. These guys rival the ZZ Top band for the use of the extreme beard as a fashion statement. So, what is happening....

The beard worn by almost every single one of their players tell me something bigger is going on. The three-day growth has become de rigeur for professional athletes. Some players  beards border the length of mullahs... But no, this is not a religious statement. More like a political statement. The men in beards seem to be questioning their allegiance to corporate culture. They wonder if the corporation can solve all problems, debate whether corporate conformity is a good thing.  Capitalism still produces fantastic wealth but the nowadays the money does not get distributed as well as in the 50s and 60s. Of course, the Boston Red Sox all have a corporate employer-- the Boston Red Sox.

Professional ballplayers happen to be some of the lucky ones. The Boston Red Sox payroll pushes 160 million dollars total, for what?  25 guys. And imagine the mean salary...$3.44 million per player per year! That figure was reported by the Associated Press as the mean salary for professional baseball players in 2012.

Baseball players usually come from the middle to lower class ranks. I'm guessing very few have Ivy League or Wall Street parents. They want to be perceived as hardworking guys, blue collar. And they do use their hands. Ballplayers "shower after work" as Ed Schulz, the MSNBC guy likes to say. Latino players dominate the ranks. Ballplayers also want to be perceived as macho men, guys with an edge and a physical presence, not like the white collar corporate number crunchers, though the ballplayers' salaries rival a hedge fund manager's financial reward. The seeds of a rebellion against The Man may be at the core of the fashion trend towards men growing facial hair.

The Red Sox players possibly incorporate wild beards for another reason, as a way to have fun and to keep things loose in the high-pressure, overhyped world of  today's professional sports. They began playing for fun, as kids playing on the sandlots or in Little League-- before money was a motivator for pitching, hitting and catching the ball with grace and skill.