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- NATION, Page 23American NotesBASEBALLClip 'Em or Ship 'Im!
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- 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.
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- 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.
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- 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 A $250 fine was rescinded.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.
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