By Evan Weiner

A lot has been said about the NBA's new dress code. Few, though, have noted that the NBA had some sort of appearance code back in the 1950s as well. George Yardley may have been traded because he had no hair.

Yardley was Larry Bird before Larry Legend was born. The problem for Yardley, whose nickname was Bird, was the time in which he played. He started with the Fort Wayne Zollner Pistons in 1953, moved to Detroit with the team in 1957 and was traded to the Syracuse Nationals during the 1958-59 season. He retired the following year, but came back for one last gone around in the American Basketball League in 1961-62.

Yardley was a scoring machine; the first NBA player to score 2,000 points in a season, he played in six straight All-Star Games. He was also bald, which seems to have had a significant role in his trade to Syracuse.

Back in the 1950s, the NBA bore no resemblance to what is now called the NBA. Franchises shifted; sometimes they went out of business without telling their players. And there were some cities that were tough places for visiting players. Yardley knew this, but he also realized that was the NBA in those days; so being traded because he was bald wasn't that much of a shock.

The story that's been going around for nearly five decades is that Detroit Pistons owner Fred Zollner's new girlfriend went to a game and watched all of the players. She developed an immediate dislike for Yardley because he was bald. So Zollner traded him despite the fact that Yardley scored over 2,000 points and averaged 27.8 points per game in the previous season. Yardley acknowledged there was some truth to the story. But he also contended there was a little more to it.

"I've heard that too," Yardley confirmed back in the late 1990s. "I know she did not like me. But whether she did not like me because I was bald or not is probably insignificant, because Fred was no beauty. The ugliest two on that whole outfit were Fred Zollner and me.

"Maybe his money made up for his lack of beauty. But I know she was a gal off the streets sort of, and I did not like her style. I didn't give her the time of day and I am sure she had every reason in the world not to like me because I was never civil to her, never talked to her, never buttered her up like the rest of the guys did. The rest of the guys were nice people, But I have a hard time keeping my feeling off my sleeves."

George Yardley, scoring machine, was no longer welcomed in Detroit. The owner's girlfriend didn't like him.

"So Zollner traded me. I was also having a bad year. The previous year, I had 2,000 points and there was a lot of pressure to repeat—something I knew I couldn't do. I had a once in a lifetime year and I could never repeat it. But, in trying to do so, I put a lot of pressure on myself, I got asthma and I got hypoglycemia and was in and out of the hospital. I could not perform. So there was every reason for him to trade me.

"They didn't get much for me, but the team was in such disrepair by then and it was a good break for me. I took a big pay cut to go to Syracuse. Detroit was the wealthiest team in the league and I was the highest paid player in the league. But when I went to Syracuse they didn't want to pay me more than Dolph Schayes. So I took a five or six thousand dollar cut in pay but it was worth it. I loved every minute of it."

You might think that Yardley might have harbored some resentment toward Zollner for trading him, but he didn't. In fact, he has a simple question: Why did it take until 1999 for Zollner to be elected into the Basketball Hall of Fame?

"Fred Zollner was the steadying influence and he owned the Pistons," said Yardley. "There are a number of owners and promoters who were in the Hall of Fame that did not have anywhere near as much to do with the eventual success of the NBA as Fred.

"Money was at a premium in those days and people had to put on donkey basketball in the summer to pay for their basketball payroll in the winter. Fred had the money to keep the whole thing afloat."

Yardley finished his NBA career in Syracuse in 1960 and averaged 20.2 points per game that year. He retired, or at least thought he was going to retire, but Bill Sharman lured him back in 1961 to play with the American Basketball League's Los Angeles Jets.

Yardley's career ended with the Jets as a role player. He participated in only home games and when he did travel on the road, a deal was worked out to allow him to mix basketball with his real occupation. He was a part-time player who was supposed to be the highest paid player in the ABL. But it didn't quite work out that way.

"There was good news and bad news. I was the highest paid player in basketball. I got $500 per game and the bad news was none of the checks cleared," he recounted. "It was a fun deal. I played for [Bill] Sharman and we had a good team and had a lot of fun. It was terrific.

"One of my best friends says we played for the dumbest guys who ever lived. They didn't realize we would have played for nothing. In that case, I was playing for nothing. It was worth it. None of the checks ever cleared. I'm still waiting after 35 years.

"I know Sharman's checks cleared because he had a personal services contract and I guess the others cleared too. I was only getting a check every once in a while and the team only lasted a couple of months. I got to go to a camera show in New York and played a little basketball on a trade out. But you know what? Even if they told me I wasn't going to get paid, I would have played anyway."

That last claim aside, Yardley would have fit right into the NBA today, where baldness is part of the culture and players have to do much more outrageous things than being bald to be traded.