NEW YORK (AP) — These Yankees have minted a new vibe going into their first World Series since 2009.
Baseball’s most tradition-bound team, with a grandiose granite-and-limestone stadium and pinstriped home uniforms that have hardly changed since 1936, has added a flamboyant flash to its accessories: Statue of Liberty green.
“Been kind of looking for a little accent color and I think the Statue of Liberty and what it represents in the city and the state, it’s a good one,” said captain Aaron Judge, who started the color craze.
New York remains the major leagues' most conservatively dressed club in an era marked by expressions of individuality — Yankees players remain forbidden from long hair or beards under a policy owner George Steinbrenner issued in 1976. But whether its Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Alex Verdugo wearing glitzy chains, or Juan Soto walking up to a dembow hit titled after his signature “Soto Shuffle,” this year’s team isn’t as stodgy as the Yankees of yesteryear.
Up and down the lineup, nothing expresses that quite like all the mint green accents. It’s on cleats, chest protectors, batting gloves and sliding mitts, along with wrist and elbow guards. This is one team happy to be told it looks like statues — at least sartorially.
Judge is the Yankees’ ultimate influencer, and if he goes green, the rest of the team follows.
Reliever Jake Cousins remembered joining up with the Yankees at the team hotel in Phoenix after he was acquired on March 31, the fourth day of the season.
“I got on the bus, went to the back, just kind of said, `What’s up?′ to everybody and sat there in silence,” Cousins said. “And when we pulled into the stadium -- Judge sits at the very front -- and we got off the bus, and Judge got off first. He waited off on the side for me and I was the last guy off the bus and Judge was there waiting for me, like, `Hey, man, welcome to the team. If you need anything, I’ll help you out.′ That just shows his true leadership.”
Now 32 and likely to win his second AL MVP Award, Judge leads the Yankees into the World Series starting Friday at the Los Angeles Dodgers. He signed with the Yankees in 2013, made his big league debut three years later and in December 2022 was appointed the team’s first captain since Derek Jeter.
“I’ve been in the Yankees organization for a while and I just felt like that was what I saw the veteran guys do, and I just wanted to be a part of that," Judge said. “I try to continue to do that to this day and try to show our younger guys the same thing, `How you doing around here?′ because the quicker we get these guys feeling comfortable with us, feel like they’re a part of this team, the better they’re going to be playing, the better they’re going to help us win games.”
Yankees manager Aaron Boone cites a togetherness that developed when players started reporting to the minor league complex in Tampa, Florida, last January, well before spring training. Five of the 26 players on the active roster for the AL Championship Series clincher were not with the Yankees when spring training started and acclimated after they arrived.
Getting into the tonal temperament, Nestor Cortes even had a glove made in mint with a navy torch, orange Statue of Liberty flame and “Hialeah Kid” stitched in script into the leather along back of the index finger. The left-hander contacted 44 Pro, his equipment supplier. on April 26 to make a special order.
“I said everybody’s using the mint-colored glove here or mint-colored accessory,” Cortes recalled telling the company. “I’d like to kind of blend it in with New York and see if we can get a torch in there or something.”
Graphic designer Trey Miasek got to work and Cortes used the glitzy glove when he pitched six scoreless innings to beat Baltimore for the Yankees on June 18.
“They’re known to be the strictest in the MLB in terms of having facial hair or piercings or hairstyles,” said Benny Miller, Pro44’s glove product line manager. “It’s always kind of surprising when they all went crazy with the mint.”
Cortes later had to stop using the glove when MLB decided the flame was distracting to batters, the pitcher said.
Chisholm has added to the exuberance since he was acquired from Miami on July 27. The infielder is co-owner of his glove company, Absolutely Ridiculous Innovation for Athletes (ARIA), and a staffer traveled to Boston with appropriately hued gear for his Yankees debut at Fenway Park on July 28.
For the World Series, Chisholm has a pair of new gloves in navy blue with metallic gold, one with 27 flames and one with 27 pennants — the number representing the Yankees record total of titles.
Chisholm, whose given name is Jasrado, has impacted the Yankee Stadium music. When he fouls off pitches, organist Ed Alstrom at times plays Kander and Ebb -- “All That Jazz” from the 1975 Broadway musical “Chicago;” “Take Five,” Paul Desmond’s best-selling jazz composition made famous by the Dave Brubeck Quartet; and “Funky Nassau" a 1971 Ray Munnings and Tyrone Fitzgerald song performed by The Beginning of the End, an R&B group from Nassau in the Bahamas — where Chisholm was born.
“Brings a lot of swag to the park every day and energy — kind of a light and a smile,” manager Boone said. “He’s hugged our room and they’ve hugged him back.
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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/
Ronald Blum, The Associated Press
