Swisher Quickly in N.Y. State of Mind

NEW YORK – When players join the Yankees, they have to cut their hair and shave any whiskers below the lip.

They also seem to lop off much of their personality.

The reputation of the Yankees around baseball is of a corporate culture, where winning is taken so seriously that there isn't room for fun.

Nick Swisher knew of that perception, so after being traded from the White Sox over the winter, he went to spring training wondering if he could be himself. (Himself being a gregarious country boy from West Virginia.)

"The first couple of days I was in my locker, I didn't say nothing," said Swisher, 28. "I just sat there. Until I got a good feel for the guys. After a couple of days there was just a turning point where I could say, 'Hey man, let's start getting loud.' "

He hasn't stopped.

Before Friday's game against the Angels, which he left after two innings because of a bruised right elbow, Swisher was adding to the collage he has created at his locker in the new Yankee Stadium clubhouse. Swisher has cut out pictures of teammates and past Yankees from the team yearbook and New York tabloids and taped them to the brand-new smoked-glass partition between his locker and Johnny Damon's.

CC Sabathia wandered over to admire it and let out a loud, "Ha ha ha ha ha!" as they shared a joke. Then Swisher stuck his iPod into a speaker and cranked up some tunes.

So far, Swisher's act is a hit in New York.

It has helped, of course, that he has already hit seven homers and slugged .714. (Swisher, hit by a pitch Friday from a Jered Weaver pitch, is day-to-day because of the elbow. X-rays were negative.)

Swisher's personality didn't go over well last year with the White Sox, his only season in Chicago. He didn't mesh with that clubhouse, and when his production sank (.219 average), he withdrew.

The same could have happened with the Yankees, as the signing of Mark Teixeira forced Swisher to the bench less than two months after he was acquired. But Teixeira's wrist injury allowed Swisher to get some playing time early, and he produced. Then right fielder Xavier Nady was lost to an elbow injury, and Swisher had himself a regular job.

The core of the late '90s Yankees dynasty that remains -- Derek Jeter, Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettitte -- is mostly a no-nonsense bunch. Unlike in other clubhouses, there are no card games or movie-watching.

And while manager Joe Girardi maintains there were indeed characters on the Yankees teams he played for -- "Tim Raines would irritate Paul O'Neill every day; he would walk by and just kind of nudge him every day" -- the pressure, scrutiny and expectations that come with the Yankees and their payroll seems to make it hard for the outgoing to stay that way.

Damon isn't quite the "idiot" he was in Boston. Jason Giambi, the long-haired wild man in Oakland, seemed to tame himself in New York (of course, he was dealing with steroids fallout for much of the time).

"We do have to behave at times," Damon said, "because it seems like whatever we do ends up in the paper. So you try to avoid that.

"I've definitely calmed down a little, probably because I'm a bit older. Now it's a lot easier to calm down because I know 'Swish' is here, so he can kind of carry the load as much as he wants."

No one would say that the Yankees needed a loose cannon in the clubhouse -- that would be a slap at Jeter and Co. -- but Girardi welcomes Swisher's extroverted nature.

"I think his personality's great," Girardi said. "The one thing you talk about is being professional. Swish is professional. He plays hard every day.

"His personality's energetic, that's what it is. ... The one thing that you don't want is you don't want 25 people that are exactly the same. Or you're going to have a boring place. He brings a lot of life and energy every day. His uniform's dirty every day – his uniform's dirty if he didn't play."

The question is, will Swisher's act wear thin, as it eventually did in Oakland and Chicago?

On the field, Swisher has assimilated faster than any Yankee in recent history. He reached base safely in his first 17 games, the first time a new Yankee did that since Matty Alou in 1973, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Swisher became the first newcomer to lead the team in homers and RBI in April since Bobby Bonds in 1975.

Swisher credits his teammates, the Yankees staff and the fans for making him feel accepted.

"That welcoming that they gave me lets me be me," he said. "I don't feel that I have to act a certain way. If I want to be an idiot, I can be an idiot. If I want to do something goofy, I'm not scared to do that. I think that's just my personality. It's so nice to just be able to be you and not be criticized or something."