MLB vs Minor League Dress Code

All right today answering your questions. Today's question is on dress code in both the minor leagues and the major leagues. And so I'm going to go through what I experienced as far as dress code goes in both minors and the majors. It also depends on the organization and so every organization was a little bit different. Now keep in mind I only played for one organization in the major leagues but I played in the minor leagues for five different organizations and so I can give you some insight into all this. So let's start off let's start off in the minor leagues. What is your dress code both at home on the road and when you travel? Again it really depends on the organization you're with and these may have changed since I last played. I haven't played since 2013. Okay it also let me stop real quick it also depends on who your manager is because I've I've played in certain organizations that have certain rules but then the managers can also kind of make their own rules. Okay so when it comes to to dress code in general and let's just talk about not so much our actual clothing but let's first just talk about you know hair beards I guess that is also here I call it here hair I don't know how to pronounce it I say things weird from where I'm from but hair okay facial hair and and hair on your head. Okay most organizations that I played with wanted you be to be somewhat clean cut as far as your hair goes. So when I was with the Padres and again I think most teams you couldn't have hair that went below the collar I think is what they they wanted. Now some teams got a little bit more that were a little bit more lenient with that than others. I do know that I had pretty long hair when I was with the Padres it luckily it was it was pretty curly they never really made me cut that but but in the minor leagues like if you got super long hair they would make you they would make you cut that hair. Now as far as facial hair goes when I was with every organization didn't really matter you could basically wear a beard however you kind of wanted it. I always had like this scruff right here no one ever gave me any issues with that. Okay so that was with four of the organizations I was with now when I went to the Yankees it was different there and so the hair policy for your your the hair on your head was still the same kind of policy but the facial one was not and so I've told this story I actually just told it a couple videos ago you had to be clean shaven I mean real clean shaven they wanted you to take a real razor and shave your face basically every single day and that's something that I just don't do I've never I've never done that like you can see right now I just shaved yesterday this is how this is what I like on my face I don't like the feeling of having absolutely no hair on my face all right and so I got yelled at when I got sent over there mid-season first thing I showed up to the clubhouse and before I could even say hello to anyone one of the coaches said go shave your effing face okay so then I had to go and try to figure out how to use a razor and I'm cutting myself and so when I come back to say hello I've got like you know tissue paper all over the place because I've got cuts and I don't even know I've seen my dad do that when I was a kid like oh a little cup a little bit tissue paper there you know stop the bleeding a little bit so I just thought that's the way you did so I probably look like an idiot but it was really really bad okay but other than the Yankees no one else really cared as far as your facial hair went now let's go into dress code and again this isn't uniform this is like when you're traveling on the road or when you're showing up to the ballpark so typically in the minor leagues showing up to the ballpark I never really had any strict code it was just basically don't look like an idiot so you could really wear whatever you want but there was in AAA especially with the Padres they wanted us to wear a collared shirt every day and I didn't experience this with I don't know if I experienced this with any other teams but the Padres when I was in AAA and this I think was our manager I had the same manager every year in AAA he wanted us to wear a collared shirt so you could still wear jeans but you had to wear a collared shirt to the stadium and I didn't wear any collared shirts really ever I don't think most kids probably do I don't think anyone says I mean some people might but I don't think many people say like yeah you know I'm just gonna I like wearing collared shirts all the time I personally didn't do that and so I would just go to the store I remember I went to the store and bought like probably just like two or three collared shirts that were like five dollars I just wear the same one every single day to the park so when I had to go to the park I'd throw it on I'd go to the park take me a couple minutes to get there take it off play the game wear it out of the park and then put my normal clothes back on and so I just use basic basically the same shirt every single day I wore for like 10 minutes a day all the other minor league teams that I played with you could just wear pretty much whatever you want again just don't look like a like an idiot but I never had any issues with that was never told to change out of my normal clothes that I was wearing now traveling in the minor leagues again with the Padres and I was with the Padres the most the Padres were actually the only organization in the minor leagues where I traveled by a plane all the other triple-a teams that I played with in the minor leagues we were on buses so when you travel on the bus you could wear whatever you wanted so the Orioles we traveled by bus the Indians we traveled by bus everywhere I think while I was with them the Yankees was all by bus and then the Nationals were all by bus so we didn't have to dress up when I was with the Padres we flew in triple-a and so we had to wear a suit we did not have to wear a tie but we did have to wear a suit and so I actually got in big trouble for this one year because I was injured but I had shipped my suitcase and everything with the team so at the end of spring training I packed up my suitcase with my suit and everything and I shipped that out so I didn't have to worry about it because I was only gonna I was injured for a little bit it wasn't a major injury this year and I had a lot of injuries I was gonna meet the team wherever we're going I figured it'd be like two weeks or so so I shipped everything there I just kept a few things of clothing right I probably wore the same thing every day I still kind of do and so I shipped my suit out so when I showed up to meet the team I flew in and I didn't have a suit on I just I figured out I'm just meeting the team somewhere I'm flying commercial all by myself another team I got there and our manager was not happy and he said I expect you to be in a suit by the time we leave and I was like you know I was 20 at that point I was probably like 22 years old or so which seems like an adult but in my mind I was really like when it came to life skills I was like 12 years old probably and I was like a suit I'm like I don't know how to buy a suit my mom bought me my first suit like that I was wearing like I don't know what to do how do I buy a suit what do I do and so I just was like I'll buy it when I get back to Arizona Arizona when I get back to Portland Oregon because we were in the we're on the road and I was like I don't even have a car like I don't even know how to get how do I get to the mall I guess you can take a taxi back then there were no ubers and I'm like I gotta take a taxi to a mall or someplace to buy a suit well we have games every day I was like I'll do it once I get back and he was not he flipped out on me actually flipped out when I showed up without a without a suit on so so that was my that was my experience there now in the big leagues and actually hold on one second let me go back one more time okay because I do have another story that I felt like an idiot my my dress shoes one time were this is a long story I won't get into the entire story but my dress shoes somehow were in my car and my car got towed all right so I don't know what the hell happened I parked in the wrong parking lot and I had to get to we had the he was not happy with this one either we had to fly out one morning and so I went to get in my car I don't know why my dress shoes were in my car but they were and my car had been towed and I didn't have time to get my I didn't I had to get to the plane I had to get to the bus to go to the airport to fly out so I had no dress shoes so I wore my suit I wore sneakers and I remember showing up to the airport in my sneakers and he was like what the hell are on your feet right now and I was like um they're sneakers I said my dress shoes were in my car and it got towed and I don't have time to go get the car and so I'll get it when I get back and he was not happy that I had sneakers on but what the hell was I supposed to do I literally was like rushing to the the bus to get to the airport so anyways I had a couple rough run-ins with my manager who was a great guy but I had rough run-ins with him when it came to dress code in the minor leagues now again that was I didn't have to do that in any other place because it was all buses in the minor league so that was fine now when you get to the major leagues in the major leagues you have to wear a suit and so um it's it's basically the way they did it in triple or the padres I guess is preparing you they said well you're going to be in the big leagues soon hopefully you guys are going to be in the big leagues soon and so let's get you prepared right now for what it's going to be like in the big leagues and so in the big leagues you do have to wear a a suit when you travel on the team plane so even though it's your private charter plane you have to wear a suit you can't at least again when I was there now there's some teams uh I know that like Joe Madden a lot um he'll have guys wearing like I don't I've seen them wearing like Hawaiian stuff and they have all these different days I personally never had that when I was with the padres I wasn't there long enough maybe we did have one I just wasn't aware of it but every day that I flew it was always suit and tie except for when I had to wear my hooters outfit during rookie hazing if you haven't seen that you can type it into the search in YouTube and it'll come up actually you'll see some pictures of me I'm sure most of you don't want to see a picture of me in a hooters outfit but I did have to do that one trip and it was horrible so suit and tie now one thing one thing again I was a horrible dresser I spent no money on clothes at all I didn't really care what I look like I mean I just not that I didn't care I mean yeah I guess I kind of didn't care I just was like clothes really aren't important I'm not going to spend money and waste money on clothes when I don't even know anything about clothes but I do remember on my first trip in the big leagues we're waiting to get on the plane and I had on these these shoes that I literally bought for like I don't know they were probably like $80 I got them at some like discount thing but they looked really nice like that's why I got them I was like damn like 80 bucks I'm like these look kind of fancy and I remember waiting to get on the plane and a couple of our pitchers looked down and they were like they said something about my shoes and they said like oh nice to be you know basically like a first round pick or whatever and I was like yeah I know I mean yeah you're right you know these things cost like three grand they're Louis Vuitton shoes I don't even know Louis Vuitton makes shoes I don't really know but anyways they were like 80 bucks they might even have been less it might have been $50 okay but you had to wear dress shoes you had to wear slacks and you had to wear you had to wear suit it's like you had to wear suit okay that's how you did it in the major leagues when you were traveling now to home games and on the road I wore whatever I wanted I don't remember there being any dress code I remember we definitely didn't wear suits and I don't remember even having to wear a college shirt I think we just had a again look somewhat presentable not look like you know like just rolled out of bed but I don't remember ever having to wear any of that on on the road other than being on the team plane if I remember correctly so the team plane is really where the dress code was again for us when I was playing again that's just one organization I don't know what the other organizations do other than you know again seeing stuff on TV with Madden that's one of the teams you see it with other teams too it seems like teams have gotten a little bit more loosey-goosey with some of their team travel again there's still being there still may be days where they have to wear suits but I do know they have certain days where they don't where they can wear you know they have different themes and stuff like that I've seen superhero themes and Hawaiian themes and all that so hopefully that gives you a little bit of insight again this is it's it's a little bit difficult because I haven't played with a ton of teams only five organizations and it does depend on the manager and it depends on the level that you're at and all that stuff but hopefully this gives you a little bit of insight into what I dealt with as a player in the minor leagues and in the major leagues when it came to dress code so that's all I got thanks for watching subscribe to the channel hit the notification I'll give a thumbs up all that good stuff we'll talk to you later if you've got hitters that you're looking to improve before the start of next season this is essential for you Matt Antonelli here former major league player first round pick and college coach with this course we're going to show you exactly step by step how to generate power develop at speed and enhance swing mechanics 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