Hair Controversy Is Shear Madness

Unconventional wisdom for a Monday morning . . .

Don Mattingly: The body of Frankensteinbrenner is gone, but the spirit lives on. The Yankees’ incredible hair-today-better-be-gone-tomorrow saga begs a whole litany of questions: What kind of team decides to bench a future Hall of Famer because his hair curls over his collar? Is this why the Yankees are 0-for-pennants since 1981? Shouldn’t Yankee General Manager Gene Michael get a life? Is Stump Merrill just jealous because Mattingly has hair? Remember when this team had a Yankee Clipper who took pitchers deep--not a little off the top?

Monica Seles: Why hasn’t anyone done something about her hair?

Boris Becker: Or his? First Elvis Costello and now Boris has opted for the scraggly-beard, Jerry Garcia-gone-fishing-in-the-Appalachians look. Sad days, indeed, for our pop culture. Sad days for Elvis and Boris, too. Both played much better when they were angry, young, clean-shaven men.

Todd Lyght: As usual, when Ram management swings its sword, it cuts in two directions. The Rams finally signed Lyght--great. They’re paying him $5.55 million for five years--astounding. So why couldn’t this have been done before the weekend of the third exhibition game, so that Lyght might have had a chance of helping the Rams before October?

Irv Pankey: Home alone. Take Jim Everett’s word for it--the Rams’ last holdout continues to be mighty conspicuous in his absence.

Phoenix Cardinals: Suddenly, they’re 3-0. Anthony Dilweg wasn’t the season-opening pushover the Rams thought he’d be, either.

Gaston Green: Wake him when the games start to count.

Marion Butts, Bobby Humphrey: The longer they hold out, the more fantasy football league drafts they screw up.

On The Road With The Angels: Dave Winfield hit his 400th home run. Lance Parrish hit his 300th home run. Doug Rader kept his job. It has been a trip of historical magnitude.

Doug Rader: Now that the Angels found the answer to their real problem in Minnesota-- We hit, we win --it’s time to reel in the trial balloon and tend to the issues that will shape this franchise’s short-to-long term future. For starters: What to do with Wally Joyner?

Wally Joyner: The choice, really, is simple. You can trade him now . . . or pay him later. The third option--losing the best hitter the organization ever developed for no return--is no option at all.

Mickey Rourke: I just saw the trailer to his new movie, “Harley Davidson And The Marlboro Man.” He’d better stick to boxing.

Stefan Edberg: I just saw his commercial for Adidas. Immediately, I fell asleep and dreamed I was wearing Nikes.

Cecil Fielder, Bill Gullickson: If Sparky Anderson’s amazing Bad News Tigers sneak in and steal the American League East championship, they will have to stamp it Made In Japan.

Pan Am Games: So, the United States shouldn’t send Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing to Barcelona for the 1992 Olympic Games? Dateline, Havana: Puerto Rico 73, USA 68. Any more questions?

John Daly: Do you care that Indianapolis played New Orleans in an NFL exhibition this weekend? Would you have cared if Long John Daly, the baby-booming PGA champion, had suited up and tried a field goal for the Colts? Twenty years ago, the Colts let a scrawny book writer named George Plimpton take a few preseason snaps at quarterback for them. Today, times are uptight and the Colts retract their original offer from Daly, telling him they were afraid he might get hurt. Yeah, those professional placekickers are dropping like flies this summer. The No Fun League claims another.

Tiger Woods: A multi-million-dollar brand-name line in the making. To be followed by Tiger Irons.

Lee Williams: He is unsigned, unhappy and about to be unattached from the San Diego Chargers. Not incidentally, he is also a 6-6, 271-pound defensive end with 4.8 speed and 64 1/2 sacks since 1985. So far, the Cowboys, Falcons, Jets and Buccaneers have phoned the Bobby Beathard Home Shopping Network. Did John Shaw have to give Lyght his Rolodex, too?

Paris Is Burning: Not calories he isn’t. Bubba Paris, the San Francisco 49ers’ medicine ball-shaped offensive tackle, arrived at training camp weighing 327 pounds, cholesterol-count raging, so grossly out of shape that George Seifert had to hold him out of early workouts out of fear for Paris’ health. “He’s a fat pig,” said one teammate. It’s a shame, said another, that “all the rest of us have to suffer and bear his weight.”

Toronto Blue Jays: They traded their shortstop (Tony Fernandez), their first baseman (Fred McGriff) and an entire outfield (Junior Felix, Mark Whiten, Glenallen Hill) and they still lead their division by three games. Testimony to the strength of their farm system or the strength of the AL East, take your pick.

Cincinnati Reds: Defending champions, but of what? The World Series in 1990, the World Wrestling Federation in ‘91?

New York Mets: If they played in the American League, they would be the Angels.