TORONTO — In the middle of April, with the Yankees off to a dispiriting start to the season, Brett Gardner arrived at the visitors’ clubhouse at Tampa Bay with several days of stubble, knowing he had to shave before someone tapped him on the shoulder with a reminder that the Yankees had a no-beard policy.
Instead, Gardner, a Yankee since he entered the majors, told catcher Brian McCann that he might keep a mustache, “and he said, ‘Yeah, I think you should,’ ” Gardner recalled. “So I did.”
Gardner’s barely discernible wisps of hair remained on his upper lip, and as they continued to grow, so did the Yankees’ win total.