Baseball Fans Are Going Blond — & Beauty Stores Can't Keep Up With The Demand

We knew this platinum hair trend would eventually come to a head. Lately, we’ve seen stars from every corner of Hollywood going bright blond for multiple reasons: Katy Perry is ready for a fresh start, Kristen Stewart is prepping for a role, and Allison Williams is ditching her Girls character's old skin. But we never expected to see the look on so many athletes. Turns out, Puerto Rico’s national baseball team all donned platinum hair during the World Baseball Classics — and the men have sparked quite the trend in their hometown ever since.

This year, the team is attributing their success to "Blond Bonding." While a few players dyed their hair a golden shade before the series began, it was only after they started winning consecutively that other teammates jumped on the blond bandwagon. "It wasn't something we did just to do, it was like, 'We're going to do something together for brotherhood.' ... When you have a team like that, it shows the solidarity with everybody. It shows that unity, that brotherhood, and that's what we're all about,” infielder Mike Aviles told ESPN.

Then, people back home unexpectedly followed suit — something the team (and every beauty shop owner in Puerto Rico) had never seen before. In fact, the unity is so widespread that Myrna Rios, a manager at a Sally Beauty Supply Store in San Juan, told The Washington Post, “Ever since they began winning, this has not stopped. We have run out of the product in most of our stores.”

Considering how most — but not all — men and women in Puerto Rico have dark features, it's been overwhelming for the players to see people walking the streets with platinum blond hair. “For us, it started as a joke to show how much we are committed to each other," Puerto Rico's Enrique Hernandez told ESPN. "Now, the whole island doing it means a lot. And we can definitely feel the spirit they're showing."

Whether this is the best damn sports juju around or not, it seems to be working. Puerto Rico has won all six games in the WBC and will compete in the championship round against the U.S. this week in California. Let’s hope the rest of the brunettes on the island can find a bit of peroxide and Olaplex in the meantime.