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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Hey J.P.? You get a balloon with that haircut?

Posted Aug 3, 2011 by Roger Mooney

Updated Aug 3, 2011 at 07:30 PM

ROGER MOONEY
ST. PETERSBURG J.P. Howell said he’d never cut his hair, that the long locks and shaggy beard where here to stay once he returned from his shoulder surgery and rehab.

On Tuesday, he cut his hair.

“I know,” he said, “I lied.”

Howell got to Tropicana Field and found Wilber Bonilla, the team barber, waiting for the Rays, who returned home after a long road trip.

Time for a cut and a shave.

Howell said he couldn’t pass it up.

He had about five inches chopped off his hair and he trimmed the beard.

The haircut might have been more had Bonilla stepped up to the, ah, plate.

“I need a change,” Howell said. “I wanted to buzz it. He said, ‘I got the thing for you. Don’t buzz it yet.’ ”

So Howell didn’t.

Yet.

But he went shorter in an effort to change his luck on the mound, though the lefty finished the road trip with two scoreless innings and added another one Tuesday.

Howell thinks the change under his cap will help change his luck on the mound.

“I do. I really do,” he said. “It changes feel, that’s for sure, so it changes something.”