American Notes Baseball

The Republic is in ruins! Don Mattingly -- six-time All-Star first baseman for the New York Yankees, captain of a once proud baseball team, Gotham's nicest < guy -- was benched last week because his not very long hair was too long to suit the Yankee brass. Like a dean's list student sent to the principal's office for chewing bubble gum, Mattingly, 30, was told he wouldn't be in the lineup until he looked like a West Point cadet. Some speculated that Mattingly was being punished for saying he wanted to be traded.

For the past two decades the Yankees have been a fun-house mirror of American society -- from the early '70s, when a couple of players swapped wives, to the long, sad reign of boss George Steinbrenner, who was accused of bullying his rich, ornery employees.

The papers don't have Steinbrenner to kick around anymore, so they made do with "Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow" jokes. No joke: Mattingly was back in the lineup the next night -- but only after promising to get shorn. A $250 fine was rescinded. It would have been no big deal anyway for a $3.86 million-a- year man.