High school baseball hopeful Liam Nararek found himself benched by Pincher Creek (Alberta, Canada) skipper Bryan Mackenzie after refusing to cut his hair.  Nazarek, 16, had been growing his hair for the past year with plans to donate for use in wigs for children with cancer.  The Pincher Creek Voice’s Chris Davis proves further details :

Nazarek’s mother, Kimberley Jorgenson and Dust Devils coach Mackenzie exchanged words before the game about the situation, and that encounter was videotaped and posted to Facebook by Jorgenson, and is excerpted in part below.

“It’s not part of baseball,” said Jorgenson.  “It’s part of my baseball team, okay, if you want to coach, there’s the team…” replied Mackenzie.

“These are becoming young men, they can make some decisions on their own, I said make some effort.”

“I said it’s an admirable cause (cancer),” he said to Liam, “You could have mentioned that to me on Thursday night, right, last Thursday (at practice) that that was the reason.  I’m not going to say it was going to make any difference, but if that was the difference on last night it should have been then too.”

“I’m talking as a coach of a team that I’m trying to set an example for, 9 other players…”

“Hair is not a rule in baseball,” said Jorgenson.  “It is for me, accept it,” replied Mackenzie.

As someone else who was thrown out of the Dustdevils for totally arbitrary reasons, I can empathize with the plight of young Mr. Nazarek.

I mean, this is exactly what happened to me. Michael Duane said, “we can’t have someone who looks like a girl in the band”, and I replied “what about Jacqui?”

He paused for a moment, left the room, returned a few minutes later and said, “we can’t have two girls in the band”.