The Yankees Batboy Is Making Baseball Twitter Go Crazy
Move over Aaron Judge, there's a new star on the New York Yankees, although you may need to get him a new pair of cleats.
Baseball social media absolutely erupted the last two nights over the Yankees new batboy that the team has been using during their away series against the Cleveland Guardians.
The Yankees batboy appears out of place for the historic franchise. (YES Network)
JOE DIRT PLAYS BASEBALL?
I mean this is fantastic.
This kid (or maybe he's old enough to be a father?) is what baseball needs. He is some sort of hybrid crossover between Joe Dirt and Hall of Fame pitcher Randy Johnson, and it's so perfect.
If Saturday Night Live was even remotely funny or relevant anymore, they would be opening this weekend's show with a bit on him. Hell - fly him in. He's that worth it.
In fact, they should probably hire some of these people from Twitter who are funnier than what they have now.
YANKEES HAVE HAD A HAIR POLICY SINCE THE 1970'S
The unnamed batboy who we have since learned is a drummer in a rock band, has also now been unwittingly thrown into a heated debate between old school and new baseball fans.
During Monday night's opening night of the three-game series, Yankees and the YES Network's play-by-play broadcaster Michael Kay made headlines by calling out the kid for not abiding by the team's grooming policies.
"Rules are rules. He's disobeying two of them. I think there's facial hair and I think obviously, the hair is below the collar," Kay said along with fellow broadcaster John Flaherty. They also mentioned that his red cleats were "also against the rules."
As a Yankees fan, I agree with Kay's overall point. Rules are rules and the Yankees have had this one in place since former owner George Steinbrenner and manager Billy Martin introduced a "Neatness Counts" policy in 1976. The archaic policy specifies that when working or playing for the Yankees, there would be "no beards, no beads, no mutton chops."
The fact that it even includes the phrase "no mutton chops," shows just how out of touch the policy is today. I had to google what that even means.
THE GUARDIANS PROVIDED THE BATBOY
The only issue where Kay may have went a bit too far is that the home teams provide the away team's batboys.
So, it was up to someone from the Guardians to inform the batboy what the Yankees policies were. He probably showed up having no idea what the Yanks policies were - many baseball fans on social media aren't even aware. Also, I can't blame the kid for not having the correct color of cleats of all things. There's no way I'd go out and buy a new pair of cleats for a three-game series unless I REALLY was pursuing a batboy career down the line.
If that wasn't enough, things got even MORE wild during night two of the Yanks - Guardians series when all eyes were on what the batboy would be looking like after going viral.
He delivered.
At first, viewers thought that the Evil Empire Yanks made the kid cut his hair! However, we later learned that he put his hair up in a hair bun.
Curiously though, notice how he isn't wearing a Yankees helmet during game two? You just know that someone from the Yanks organization saw the reaction on social media and was like we can't have him wearing our helmet. Someone did grab him some team-colored spikes as well.
MOVING FORWARD...
Is the Yankees Neatness policy over the top and out of touch? For the younger generation, probably.
As a lifelong Yankees fan I don't really hate it and it appears the people most upset about it aren't actual Yankees fans, so I don't think the team really cares about their chirping.
However, It will become an issue when the Yankees try to get a younger player who refuses to come to the team because he doesn't want to abide by the grooming rules.
Hopefully Shohei Ohtani doesn't suddenly start growing out his hair and a beard. (That would be a SIGHT though)
As for the batboy, David Spade is 58-years-old and only getting older. There's already been two Joe Dirt movies but producers may have just found the storyline for the trilogy.
Either that, or Kenny Powers may have had found his estranged child.