For fans, hair today, hair tomorrow
Shaved look catches on for players, but not fans
By Mychael Urban / MLB.com

Red Sox fans haven't quite followed the club's lead in taking razors to their scalps. (David Bergman/MLB.com) 

NEW YORK -- The rallying cry of the Red Sox, "Cowboy Up," has taken on a life of its own with Bostonians. The slogan appears on billboards, T-shirts, signs and caps. It's everywhere.

The shaved-head look that the team adopted during the American League Division Series, however, hasn't quite caught on. The freshly shorn Sox stormed back from a two-game deficit to beat the A's in three straight games to advance to the AL Championship Series, but their faithful fans aren't exactly storming Beantown barber shops.

"My husband wanted to do it after they won Game 3 [of the ALDS]," said Janine Thompson, who flew to Oakland for Game 5 and then straight to New York for Games 1 and 2 of this series. "But then he chickened out."

Her husband, Jerry, has hair to his shoulders.

"I figured, if John Burkett did it, I should do it," he said. "I just wanted to show my support. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought about how stupid I'd look when the playoffs are over.

"I had a few friends who entertained the idea, too, but they backed out at the last second, like me. I mean, it took me a long time to grow this, and we're about to get into winter. In the end I just decided it wasn't worth it.

Johnny Damon, Boston's center fielder and leadoff man, felt much the same way. After Game 4 of the ALDS he explained that he'd put too much work into his mop of hair to blow it now.

"I just now finally got it past the mullet stage," he joked. "I appreciate what the guys are doing. But for me, it's too late to turn back now. ... And looking at some of the guys, the bald look isn't really working."

It's a tough look to pull off. Second baseman Damian Jackson pulls it off nicely, and Burkett manages not to look too bad. But one teammate noted that square-jawed Gabe Kapler looks a little like Woody Harrelson's maniacal character in "Natural Born Killers."

Janine Thompson said her husband would have looked more like the latter.

"His head is misshapen," she said as Jerry laughed. "The way I see it, men should put baldness off as long as possible."