Rookie hazing day has kind of gone by the wayside.
But it used to be the day veteran players took the rookies’ nice clothes—the suits they wore on the team plane— and replaced them with embarrassing outfits. The young players would then have to parade onto the team plane and into the next hotel dressed like this while the rest of the team dressed in their professional looking attire. Sometimes a veteran player would also take the rookies out to dinner and force them to wear the outfits out to a restaurant.
The Yankees used to employ different themes—one year it was cheerleading outfits, another time it was wedding dresses. They graduated to other themes like The Village People and 80’s pop stars.
One of my favorites was The Wizard of Oz, which featured the Cowardly Lion (Joba Chamberlain) asking Glinda The Good Witch (Chase Wright) for her phone number.
In 2003, Hideki Matsui and Jose Contreras were dressed as pimps. Yes, pimps. They wore it well.
The next year Bubba Crosby, Andy Phillips and others dressed as Elvis. As the other players got dressed and watched, I caught Matsui looking on and laughing.
“Yours were better last year,” I said. And Matsui nodded in agreement. After two years in the U.S., Matsui’s English had improved to the point where I could have some basic conversations with him.
Just at that moment Ruben Sierra walked by in his typically garish getaway day outfit. Sierra was known for wearing suits that only he could pull off. Fluorescents, plaids, stripes, matching fedoras—Sierra had ‘em all.
As Sierra strolled past in one of these outlandish outfits, Matsui looked at him and then turned back to me.
“Is he rookie?” Matsui asked in a deadpan.
I howled with laughter.
“Every day he’s rookie,” Matsui said, delivering the perfect exit line.
Just like he did with his bat, Matsui always seemed to deliver when it counted