CINCINNATI (AP) - Reds outfielder Chris Heisey wasn’t surprised to see the schoolgirl outfit hanging in his locker, his humbling attire for the start of a late-season road trip.
Welcome to the majors, rookie.
“I felt it would happen,” Heisey said. “As the season went on last year, I kind of heard talk that it would happen. All the rookies were talking about what we would be dressing up as.”
Making the rookies wear outlandish outfits for a road trip or fix a ham sandwich for a veteran is as much baseball tradition as batting practice and curtain calls, a time-honored way of reminding the newcomers where they rank in the clubhouse pecking order.
While other sports struggle with the question of when rookie hazing crosses the line, it remains part of baseball’s fabric _ though not nearly as outlandish as some of the stunts in other sports.
“I think it’s worse in football,” said Colorado’s Todd Helton, who played quarterback as a two-sport star at Tennessee. “When I was in college football, they shaved me bald _ the whole incoming freshman class. A bunch of big guys grabbed you and shaved your head.”
The Jacksonville Jaguars banned rookie hazing this year, saying it had gone too far. In recent years, rookies had been taped to goal posts, covered in baby powder, tossed in a cold tub and forced to accept ugly haircuts. The Jaguars can still hold their annual rookie talent competition and veterans are allowed to make the newcomers carry their equipment. But that’s the limit.
Last year, Cowboys receiver Dez Bryant created a stir when he refused to carry a veteran’s pads, challenging the rookie hazing tradition.
In professional baseball, rookies get a much milder treatment _ no shaving, no forced haircuts, no taping to stationary objects.
“I don’t even know if hazing would be the proper term to use as far as baseball is concerned,” said Rockies manager Jim Tracy, whose rookie indoctrination involved wearing a gaudy suit.
Whatever it’s called in baseball, it’s changing, too.
With young players taking on more prominent roles, they’re getting treated more like equals in the clubhouse these days. Veterans say the latest rookie classes have been singled out far less than in the past.
“Because the game seems to be getting younger and younger, a lot of that stuff has totally changed,” said Reds pitcher Bronson Arroyo, who was forced to fetch drinks for veterans during the middle of the night at team hotels when he was a Pirates rookie. “There’s a lot less going on.”
And most welcome it.
“It’s changed,” Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. “In fact, I’m kind of glad it changed. I’ve never been a big fan of the whole thing.”
Marlins infielder Wes Helms had to carry veterans’ luggage onto team flights and serve them on the plane when he was a rookie.
“There’s definitely less than when I came up,” Helms said. “Now, you don’t really have anything as far as making them do anything stupid throughout the year to embarrass themselves.
“It definitely has calmed down over the years. Rookies are a little different nowadays. When I came up, you didn’t say a word until you had two or three years in the big leagues. Now guys come up and it’s like they’re already comfortable.”
How rookies are treated depends upon the veterans in charge. Most teams force rookies to dress in embarrassing costumes for a road trip late in the season. They might be ordered to sing or dance at the front of the team bus.
“The closest thing we have is the guy with the least service time in the bullpen has to carry the backpack of candy or drinks and find out what the bullpen guys want,” Angels manager Mike Scioscia said. “We do some things at spring training just as bonding with guys, not really hazing. You give them projects or you ask them to do a report on something.”
Each clubhouse is different.
“I think it all comes down to the people that have the power,” Arroyo said. “If the older guys are reasonable and want the team to flourish, you’re only going to be able to push that so far without damaging (the chances) to be a winning team. So I think it depends on who’s king of the hill and whether those people are reasonable.”
Some if it depends upon how the rookies accept their special treatment.
“If you take it the right way, it doesn’t happen twice,” Helton said. “Usually when a guy fights back is when the problems arise. My rookie year, I was the only rookie. When they told me to, I’d make them ham sandwiches that year. I just kept my mouth shut and did what they said.”
Paul Konerko of the White Sox thinks rookie hazing shouldn’t make a newcomer feel uncomfortable.
“I remember when I was a rookie, people made me feel uncomfortable, maybe crossed the line,” said Konerko, who broke in with the Dodgers in 1997. “When that happens, when that player gets older, he says, ’I’m not going to do that because I know how it felt.’ Or, ’I can’t wait to do it to someone.’ It’s one of the two, and I think I’m the first one.”
A lot of players see baseball’s rookie treatment as something to be appreciated.
“There’s a deeper history in the game of baseball and things like that,” Twins reliever Matt Capps said. “You try to carry that history over.
“It’s a fine line. As long as you have fun and the guys that do get hazed know that it’s all in fun and in the right manner, I think it’s great.”
As soon as the rookies are done wearing those dresses, they think about sticking around long enough to see the next generation do the same.
“Hopefully that continues,” said Heisey, in his second season in Cincinnati. “Hopefully I can play long enough to do those fun things with the rookies at some point in time.”
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AP sports writers David Ginsburg in Baltimore, Jon Krawczynski in Minneapolis, Steven Wine in Miami and freelance writer Ian Harrison in Toronto contributed to this report.
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