Beckett's hilarious rookie hazing

May 29, 200521 yr

Rookie hazing alive and well in the majors

By MIKE DOWNEY

Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO - A cross-dresser on a baseball team is not that uncommon a sight.

As a rookie in 2002, Florida Marlins starter Josh Beckett is said to have flown coast to coast to Los Angeles dressed in a hula dancer's grass skirt and a coconut bra.

As a rookie third baseman for the Philadelphia Phillies, Scott Rolen reportedly wore a halter top with a poodle skirt.

A couple of Boston Red Sox rookies, pitcher Lenny DiNardo and infielder Kevin Youkilis, a year ago were seen in Hooters waitress outfits_white tank tops with snug orange shorts.

So it came as a shock to some, but not all, Sunday when White Sox rookie Brandon McCarthy pitched his first big-league game and then changed into a pair of blue culottes, an orange blouse and a distinctly feminine hat.

Rookie hazing is alive and well.

"I think we were the first guys to do it," Hall of Fame manager Tommy Lasorda said on the phone Wednesday from his office at Dodger Stadium. "But I can't remember any guys dressing up in dresses.

"We'd make `em dress up in old clothes - raggedy, like a hobo."

Chan Ho Park, as a rookie pitcher from Korea, was unfamiliar with the custom of putting a new major-leaguer through a kind of initiation rite.

Dodgers teammates took a pair of scissors and cut to shreds a suit hanging in Park's locker.

Everyone found it funny except the victim.

"Poor Chan Ho, it was his only suit," Lasorda recalled. "And his mother gave it to him."

At least he was spared the indignity of going out in public in a dress ... or, as has been the case with many a rookie, in even more outlandish costumes.

As a newcomer from Japan last season, infielder Kaz Matsui was instructed by New York Mets teammates after a game with the Cubs that he had to leave the park in a Spider-Man suit.

His fellow Mets infielders were no luckier. David Wright had to don a dress and a red wig. Jose Reyes was given a Supergirl outfit, but it didn't fit. He had to go out instead dressed as a clown.

The clown theme is popular. Washington Nationals outfielder Terrmel Sledge wore one as Montreal Expos rookie in 2004.

A number of Tampa Bay Devil Rays got the treatment last year. At least four, including pitcher Scott Kazmir, reportedly had to pass through Canadian customs in Toronto wearing skirts. Not so shortstop B.J. Upton, who was dressed as Superman.

For a ballplayer in drag, the most bizarre incident came in September 2004. Cleveland Indians rookie pitcher Kyle Denney was made to wear a Southern California cheerleader's outfit_including white boots_because his favorite college team, Oklahoma, was vying with USC to be No. 1 in the nation's football polls.

A bullet was fired at Cleveland's team bus by a practical joker or a sniper_the culprit never was caught_as the bus left Kansas City's stadium en route to the airport. Denney was struck in the leg, but he was not hurt severely because his boot slowed the bullet.

Cubs rookies changed into costumes in Cincinnati after the team's final road game of 2003. It cheered up teammates after a loss that could have hurt their pennant hopes.

Mark Buehrle and other 2001 White Sox rookies had to spend a week in wildly flamboyant Hawaiian shirts. But after his debut in a Sox uniform Sunday, the 21-year-old McCarthy was issued a different travel wardrobe_blouse, culottes and women's shower clogs.

He wasn't the first to leave Wrigley Field that way. Houston Astros rookies once reportedly donned dresses after a game there, pitcher Brad Lidge describing his plaid flannel one as "not something I'd buy my wife."

Oh, those poor rookies.

"On the way to Wrigley, we had to pass a statue of a horse," Lasorda said. "We'd stop our bus and make a rookie get off with a can of paint. He had to spray the horse's (privates) white.

"One day a cop came by. The kid said, `They made me do it.'

"I told the cop, `Hey, I've never laid eyes on this kid before. Lock him up.'''

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/sport...ll/11742890.htm

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