Tuesday, April 22, 2008
UNA DE LAS ENTREVISTAS
April 10, 2008, 5:03 pm
Barber to the Baseball Stars
By Corey Kilgannon
After the state legislature passed law requiring a tax on beauty products, the Metro desk sent me to seek reaction and comments from owners of beauty salons and barber shops.
I was in the Bronx and pulled over at one of the first shops I saw, the Jordan Sport barber shop. It was the usual busy Dominican barber shop: lots of chatter, loud Latin music and customers getting razor sharp, high-and-tight fade cuts and angular shaves with straight razors.
But there were dozens of poster-size photos throughout the shop of all sorts of Latin baseball stars — the likes of A-Rod, Big Papi, Albert Pujols, Pedro Martinez — posing with the shop’s owner Jose Lopez, or having him cut their hair.
I asked Mr. Lopez about the new beauty tax and he criticized it, saying that he works hard to support his family and that there are much more profitable types of businesses in New York to tax than mom-and-pop barber shops.
But enough with the hard news, I thought. Tell me about this baseball theme. What’s with the dozens of photos of him with beisbol stars and extensive displays of autographed bats and balls and jerseys.
Mr. Lopez, a Dominican immigrant, said that, through his Dominican ballplayer friends, he has managed to become something of an official barber of Latino baseball stars, and also travels to Shea and Yankee Stadiums to cut Mets and Yankee players’ hair.
He described how various players like their trims. Pujols likes a tight “skin fade” with his goatee neatly trimmed. A-Rod likes it tight on the sides with the #1 electric shears to trim the top. Yogi Berra has only a little hair left, so just a trim around the back rim, please.
Pedro Martinez, whose recognizable loose curly locks are immediately recognizable to any baseball fan, is very protective of his hair.
“He is like Sampson – he says, ‘My hair is where I get my strength,” Mr. Lopez said. “He only lets me clip a little bit to keep it neat.”
Some of the photos showed him cutting Mets and Yankee players’ hair in a clubhouse or weight room setting. Mr. Lopez said he often travels to Shea and Yankee Stadiums to cut players’ hair, and showed me two official-looking photo ID cards to back this up.
In the shop, he and his barbers all wear blue smocks. On the front is an emblem of a ballplayer swinging a pair of scissors; on the back is the familiar image of Michael Jordan soaring through the air, legs akimbo.
Jordan is Mr. Lopez’s idol. He named the shop after him — as well as his sons, Michael and Jordan.
Barber to the Baseball Stars
By Corey Kilgannon
After the state legislature passed law requiring a tax on beauty products, the Metro desk sent me to seek reaction and comments from owners of beauty salons and barber shops.
I was in the Bronx and pulled over at one of the first shops I saw, the Jordan Sport barber shop. It was the usual busy Dominican barber shop: lots of chatter, loud Latin music and customers getting razor sharp, high-and-tight fade cuts and angular shaves with straight razors.
But there were dozens of poster-size photos throughout the shop of all sorts of Latin baseball stars — the likes of A-Rod, Big Papi, Albert Pujols, Pedro Martinez — posing with the shop’s owner Jose Lopez, or having him cut their hair.
I asked Mr. Lopez about the new beauty tax and he criticized it, saying that he works hard to support his family and that there are much more profitable types of businesses in New York to tax than mom-and-pop barber shops.
But enough with the hard news, I thought. Tell me about this baseball theme. What’s with the dozens of photos of him with beisbol stars and extensive displays of autographed bats and balls and jerseys.
Mr. Lopez, a Dominican immigrant, said that, through his Dominican ballplayer friends, he has managed to become something of an official barber of Latino baseball stars, and also travels to Shea and Yankee Stadiums to cut Mets and Yankee players’ hair.
He described how various players like their trims. Pujols likes a tight “skin fade” with his goatee neatly trimmed. A-Rod likes it tight on the sides with the #1 electric shears to trim the top. Yogi Berra has only a little hair left, so just a trim around the back rim, please.
Pedro Martinez, whose recognizable loose curly locks are immediately recognizable to any baseball fan, is very protective of his hair.
“He is like Sampson – he says, ‘My hair is where I get my strength,” Mr. Lopez said. “He only lets me clip a little bit to keep it neat.”
Some of the photos showed him cutting Mets and Yankee players’ hair in a clubhouse or weight room setting. Mr. Lopez said he often travels to Shea and Yankee Stadiums to cut players’ hair, and showed me two official-looking photo ID cards to back this up.
In the shop, he and his barbers all wear blue smocks. On the front is an emblem of a ballplayer swinging a pair of scissors; on the back is the familiar image of Michael Jordan soaring through the air, legs akimbo.
Jordan is Mr. Lopez’s idol. He named the shop after him — as well as his sons, Michael and Jordan.
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