This Ball Game Is Making Herzog’s Hair Stand on End

Bright and early Saturday morning, Whitey Herzog will stride into the Ridgewood barber shop in Kansas City and get himself a fresh haircut, have his flattop reflattened.

Whitey is going skiing, and he knows the importance of cranial aerodynamics out there on the slopes. If your hair style is a little shaggy, it might catch a wind shear and throw you into a crevice or mogul.

Whitey doesn’t have an appointment at the Ridgewood barber shop. You make appointments at salons and studios and parlors. At a real barber shop, you just show up and wait your turn.

I know this because when I was a kid I got my haircuts at a real barber shop, the kind where you read Field and Stream or girlie magazines while you’re waiting. If someone had phoned and asked for an appointment, I’m pretty sure Gene the barber would have said: “Sure, I’ll give you an appointment, pal. You’re the new ambassador to Portugal.”

Anyway, this is a story about Whitey Herzog and his barber. It would have been a better story if Whitey’s St. Louis Cardinals hadn’t blown the World Series out their ears, but it is still a story with strong elements of loyalty, nostalgia, tradition and art, and who can get too much of that stuff?

When Whitey Herzog played for the Kansas City A’s back in ‘58-60, he would get his hair cut short every couple of weeks in the