Chase Utley Had to Dye His Hair Because Corey Seager Hit Two HRs Against the Phillies
Vain isn’t a word you’d use to describe Chase Utley. The Man started rocking a soul patch years after it was cool (if it was ever cool) and then kept it for 10 more years. So when his hair was getting increasingly grey, he just became a silver fox. I mean, he’s still Chase Utley, so who cares?
But Corey Seager had different ideas. The Dodger rookie, who has become tight with Utley, wanted Chase to try to get some of his youthful beauty back. So they made a bet:
“He’s been telling me for the past few months how I should dye my hair,’’ Utley said. “I told him, ‘Hey, it is what it is. It’s just not something I’m interested in doing.’ He said, ‘OK, how about this? If I hit two home runs tonight, you have to dye your hair.’
“I said, ‘Sure, Corey. Done. Deal.'”
Said Seager: “I wanted him to go slick black, dark black, greased up, like the hair he used to have. So finally, the day before the game (Aug. 8 against the Philadelphia Phillies), I said, ‘Dude, what is it going to take?’ I’m trying to swing over a guy who has done everything in baseball anyone’s ever wanted. He just kept saying, ‘It’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen.’ Finally, 10 minutes before game time, I came up with the bet.’’
First inning, Seager homers off Phillies starter Zach Eflin deep over the center-field fence.
Utley doesn’t really care about his looks – at least that’s what he wants you to believe – but then he realized that he really didn’t want to dye his hair.
As Chase tells it, he went to Seager and said “How about if I hit any home run, it cancels out one your home runs?” Seager agreed. Utley homered in the third. Seager homered again in the seventh. With the new provision, Utley probably could have backed out of the bet, but he stuck with it:
“I couldn’t believe how happy he was,’’ Utley said. “I was trying to figure out where we stood in the bet, but I honored it, because I thought it was the right thing to do.’’
And one week later, there was Utley, with his hair dyed brown, and Seager taking pictures on his phone.
“I was so geeked up that day,’’ Seager said. “That was the most important game of my life. Really. Up to this point, it was the biggest.’’
Says third baseman Justin Turner, “It was the happiest I’ve ever seen Corey.”
No kidding, look how psyched he was:
His hair wasn’t dyed when he came back to Philly, because he loves us and refuses to hide his true self. But he did it all for his lil’ buddy Corey Seager. Chase Utley is for the children.