(This story originally appeared in the April 2019 edition of Yankees Magazine.)
This one really fell into my lap, and I can’t say enough about how grateful I am for that. A colleague on the Tampa side of the Yankees’ operation emailed a co-worker to mention this interesting story about a Yankees draft pick who was allowed to keep his long hair, which goes against the team’s well-known (and oft-mocked) grooming policy. She mentioned that it might be cool as short item for the front of book section.
Basically, the story was that the player, Tyler Johnson, was growing out his hair to make a wig for his mother, who had been diagnosed with leukemia. My coworker had recently taken another job, so she passed the email on to me, and I was intrigued right away.
I had no idea how amazing the story would become, though.
It turns out, Tyler had his own dramatic and traumatic medical history, one that shaped his mentality and his whole life. So he was determined to pitch professionally, and his mother was determined to watch him pitch professionally, and it was all a crazy pipe dream, until it wasn’t. But on that fateful day when the Yankees drafted him and told him to cut his hair, he explained the situation. Eventually, the question made it all the way to the team’s owner Hal Steinbrenner, who insisted that Johnson not cut his hair until he could get it long enough to make the wig.
This was a heart-wrenching story to write. Tyler’s mom, Bethanne, walked me through years of nightmares, of horror I could never imagine. Tyler told me stories I simply couldn’t conceive of. I would hang up and wipe tears from my eyes. Instead of a small item on a quirky, out-of-place hairdo, it became one of the most meaningful stories I’ve ever had the privilege to write.
I hope you’ll read and enjoy.
https://www.mlb.com/news/yankees-prospect-johnson-defies-the-odds