‘Simpsons’ Star Don Mattingly Vindicated As Yankees Change Historic Facial Hair Policy

After nearly 50 years of oppressive appearance guidelines, the New York Yankees have finally loosened their ban on facial hair — Don Mattingly, let those side burns flow freely.  

Earlier today, Yankees chairman and managing general partner Hal Steinbrenner announced that the team has amended a controversial policy on player appearance first enacted by his father George back in 1976. Starting with this upcoming 2025 MLB season, Yankees players will be allowed to keep “well-groomed beards,” as the younger Steinbrenner described his father’s long-standing blanket ban on all facial hair as “outdated and somewhat unreasonable,” which is pretty much exactly how Yankees legend Mattingly would describe another famous and controversial baseball skipper.  

As fans of The Simpsons know well, the show’s Season Three episode “Homer at the Bat” satirized the Yankees’ overbearing appearance policy by having Mr. Burns berate Donnie Baseball for having whatever Mr. Burns defines as “sideburns” while playing for the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant softball team. And, yet, Mattingly still liked him better than the late Steinbrenner.  

The announcement from the younger Steinbrenner comes nearly 33 years after “Homer at the Bat” brought in a veritable MLB All-Star team to tell the story of Mr. Burns’ attempt to rig an inter-power-plant softball championship against their Shelbyville rivals. While Darryl Strawberry, Jose Canseco, Ken Griffey Jr. and the rest of the power-hitting guest players fell victim to a wide variety of bizarre fates that prevented them from playing in the championship game (or returning to the corporeal plane), Mr. Burns fired Mattingly after repeatedly demanding that the Yankees slugger shave his sideburns to the point where Mattingly was practically bald.  

In real life, Mattingly sparred with the Yankees’ infamous hair policy immediately following production on “Homer at the Bat,” but before the episode aired on Fox. Without knowing that The Simpsons was about to hilariously parody the team’s restrictive appearance on national television, during the 1991 season, then-Yankees manager Stump Merrill demanded that Mattingly either cut his long hair or hit the bench, leading to the six-time All-Star sitting out a string of games.  

But while Mattingly will undoubtedly welcome the Yankees changing course on their facial hair ban given his personal history, he probably isn’t thinking about Mr. Burns or the scores of Simpsons fans who are currently celebrating the return of sideburns to the softball team, as Mattingly never bothered to watch “Homer at the Bat.”