BRADENTON, Fla. -- Players who leave the Yankees often grow beards, nods to their newfound freedom. Ivan Nova has taken it a step further, giving himself an egg yolk blonde mohawk.
"Trying to do something different," he said. "Trying to have fun now that I can. In New York, I couldn't do that."
Fun probably wouldn't be how Nova, now with the Pirates, would describe facing his old teammates for the first time in the Yankees' 13-1 loss at LECOM Field on Monday.
Nova signed with the Yankees out of the Dominican Republic at age 16.