NYTimEs.
KANSAS CITY, Aug. 29, 1970
The first thing you notice is the long, straight, reddish blond hair that hides the top rim of his shirt and the top of his ears. Then you look past the hair and the bushy sideburns that drop below the ears, look into the locker, and you see the burgundy shirt hanging next to the striped bellbottom slacks, the pink stripes and the lavender stripes, the green and the orange.
The sandals are there, too; so are the beards. But the guitar isn't. The guitar is at home with the motorcycle and the rest of the sincerely mod wardrobe that sets Al Fitzmorris of the Kansas City Royals apart from most of the rest of his fellow baseball players, who dress with wild and colorful clothes because it is the way to dress right now.
Al Fitzmorris is a pitcher, a 24‐year‐old pitcher who should not be a pitcher. He should be baseball's ambassador to the young fans the game tries so hard, but so often unsuccessfully, to at tract.
“Sometimes on a road trip,” Fitzmorris was saying the other day before facing the Yankees, “I wish I had brought along jeans and clothes like that because young people would be leery of me if I walked up to them and started talking to them. But I'd like to dress in jeans and just rap with them about things. But we have to wear a tie and a jacket on the road.
Attracts Young Fans
“It's too bad because I find a lot of young kids interested in baseball and they come up to me and say they like the way I dress and look. Kids say they can identify with me. But they can't identify with me if I'm wearing a tie and a jacket and if I have my hair short.”
Fitzmorris, a native of Buffalo, but a resident of San Diego, started wearing his hair long in 1965, approx imately the same time he began composing songs. He started singing a few years earlier in high school.
The hair, of course, is a frequent topic of discussion. Fortunately for Fitzmorris it isn't also a frequent object of disagreement.
“Earlier in the season our previous Manager [Charlies Metro] said to trim it up,” the 6‐foot‐2 inch, 185‐pound right‐handler related. “He said, ‘do you want to be a clean‐shaven major leaguer or a grubby minor leaguer?’ but over all they've been pretty good to me. They like you to keep it short, but I like to wear it as long as pos sible. Last winter it was down to my shoulders.
Been Trimmed Twice
“But during the season I don't let it get out of hand. If they ask me, I trim it—I've trimmed it twice this season—but there's no way they could ever get me to really cut it. There's too much emphasis put on ap pearance. If a fella can do the job, if I can win ball games [he has a 7‐3 won‐lost record], what difference does it make how long your hair is? They kind of have a double standard. They short of step on you if you're not a big star. But you remember what Ted Williams said? He said Ken Harrelson could run round naked as long as he hit home runs and drove in runs.
“I'm not influencing any one else on the team. I'm not causing anyone else on the team to wear their hair long. I've always dressed the way I wanted to and I spoke out for it. I'm not doing it to go against any tradition. But it's the way things are. It's just where things are at. You see lawyers and other professional people with long hair and bells and double breasted jackets. I can't see a lawyer with long hair com ing to a game and saying my hair is too long.”
If kids identify with Fitz morris because of his hair and clothes, they very likely will identify with him even more when they discover he's also a singer with a rock group called Ice, which has recently made a record. The songs—“Locked In” and “The Winds of My Life”—were written by the pitcher.
Two members or the group have left Kansas City, but Fitzmorris plans to reorgan ize the Ice for a Sept. 13 appearance between games of a double‐header with Oak land. He also hopes to get some work lined up for Ice in New York this winter. “When the season's over, I'm going to New York and try to get something going.” he said. “New York is where it's at.”
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