And now, courtesy of Seattle reliever Arthur Rhodes, we bring you a sentence never before uttered by an athlete questioning his opponent's manhood.

"I'm not going to let a guy weighing 125 pounds tell me that I have to take out my earring."

	Tempers on both sides flared during the dispute over Arthur Rhodes' earrings.

Kind of hard to imagine those words coming out of Ty Cobb's mouth, isn't it?

Rhodes, however, spoke them over the weekend after he became the first player ever ejected for over-accessorizing. He was about to enter Saturday's Seattle-Cleveland game in relief when Cleveland batter Omar Vizquel complained about the glare from Rhodes' diamond earrings, which are about the size of twin snow cones.

Vizquel said the glare was distracting and asked umpires to make the pitcher remove the earrings. Rhodes took offense, one thing led to another and the fashion police gave him the thumb for a major Glamour Don't. The Mariners brought in Rhodes the next day and the umpires again told him to remove his earrings. He grudgingly did so, then blew a 3-2 lead when Kenny Lofton drove a tough pitch into center field for a two-run single.

The entire episode provokes all sorts of fashion issues. If the glare from Rhodes' studs was too much for Vizquel, how does he ever manage when Rickey Henderson is in the field? Is two months' salary too much to spend on a reliever's diamond studs? And just how many carats are considered appropriate for a day game?

It also sets the stage for some very bad blood between Seattle and Cleveland should the two teams meet in the postseason. Already, manager Lou Piniella was on the radio and accused Cleveland's Charlie Manuel of wearing brown shoes with a blue suit.

Actually I'm surprised it took so long for such a conflict to arise given that players have been wearing earrings for about a decade. The one occasionally dangling from Barry Bonds' ear is large enough to double as a fishing lure for a Great White Shark and Florida's A.J. Burnett has two nipple rings.

Whether to wear earrings (or nipple rings) is not so much a matter of the rules but of baseball fashion, which goes in and out of style nearly as often as Madonna's wardrobe. Earrings or no earrings, flannel or polyester, button-down or pullover -- it's all a question of what's in at the moment.

Consider stirrup socks. Just as hem lines constantly rise and fall in women's fashion, no part of the uniform changes fashion more often than the stirrup socks.

Long ago, players wore stirrup socks that showed almost no white underneath, pulling their dark exterior socks up nearly to their knees. Then in the late '60s and '70s it became fashionable to have a long, thin stirrup that rose well over the calf. That style got to the point where Oakland did away with the stirrup sock entirely and merely painted a green stripe down their sanitary socks to give the appearance of stirrups.

Scott Erickson sparked a minor trend in the early '90s when began wearing his stirrup socks down low so that no white showed. Now most players wear their pants with the cuffs bunched up over their socks, as if Pedro Martinez accidentally put on Randy Johnson's pants.

I've never gotten used to that look but it doesn't matter. Nor should it matter to the fans who are disgusted by the earrings Rhodes and so many other players wear. Eventually, everything considered in vogue now will fall from favor.

Unfortunately, that's also true of every past style we ever hated. No matter how ugly we may consider it now, at some point baseball will bring everything back into fashion.

Well, on second thought, maybe not Randy Johnson's haircut.

Box score line of the week
Colorado's Jason Jennings became the first pitcher to throw a shutout and hit a home run in his major-league debut. Pedro Martinez returned from the disabled list. Randy Johnson struck out 16 batters in seven innings and lost.

But this week's award goes to Rhodes for his role in the longest, strangest at-bat of the season last Saturday. He took over after reliever Kazu Sasaki threw one pitch to Vizquel and then left the game due to a sore thigh. That sparked the great Diamond Debate and led to Rhodes' ejection before he even threw a single pitch. Which brought in John Halama, the second emergency reliever of the at-bat, who finally retired Vizquel on a popup.

All told, the at-bat took about 15 minutes and three pitchers and led to this very unusual line for Rhodes:

0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 ER, 0 BB, 0 K, 0 pitches

And, of course, no earrings.

Lies, damn lies and statistics
The Red Sox were 26-27 while Pedro was on the disabled list and went from three games ahead of the Yankees to four games behind New York ... The Mariners set a team record for victories in a season last Thursday with their 92nd win and still have a good shot to break the 1998 Yankees' record for most victories in a season (114). How much turnover has this team had? Forget the departure of Junior, Randy and A-Rod; there are only four Mariners (Edgar Martinez, Dan Wilson, Jamie Moyer and Jay Buhner) who even played with Griffey in 1998. ... The Mariners entered Wednesday's game with a two-game losing streak and needed to beat Tampa Bay to avoid their first three-game losing streak of the season. Only one team has gone through an entire season without losing three games in a row -- the 1902 Pirates. ... Amazing Ichiro note of the week: he became the fourth rookie since Tony Oliva in 1964 to reach the 200-hit mark, and he has 30 games left to pad his total. Ichiro has 42 infield hits. ... Oakland's young starting pitchers better be good -- closer Jason Isringhausen has blown nine saves.

From left field
Congratulations to the Japan Little Leaguers who not only won the title at Williamsport this weekend, but also escaped without charges that their pitcher was 18 years old. How will these Little Leaguers fare in the future? If the past is any indication, we won't hear from them again. Only 22 kids went on from the LLWS to the majors, though Sean Burroughs will soon make that 23 if the Padres call him up in September.

Here are the eight players who played in the Little League World Series and the real World Series:

Player	LLWS	World Series
Jim Barbieri	Schenectady, N.Y., 1954	Dodgers, 1966
Boog Powell	Lakeland, Fla., 1954	Orioles, 1966, '69, '70, '71
Rick Wise	Portland, Ore., 1955	Red Sox, 1975
Carney Lansford	Santa Clara, Calif, 1969	Athletics, 1988-90
Ed Vosberg	Tucson, Ariz., 1973	Marlins, 1997
Charlie Hayes	Hattiesburg, Miss., 1977	Yankees, 1996
Gary Sheffield	Tampa, Fla., 1980	Marlins, 1997
Derek Bell	Tampa, 1980-81	Blue Jays, 1992

Win Blake Stein's money
This week's category is: The Shares From His Combined World Series Totaled $626,000 And 3,281 Snow Cones.

Q. Who is the only player to play in the Little League World Series, the College World Series and the World Series?

Power rankings

1. Mariners Bad news: Rhodes blows save. Good news: Gains endorsement deal with DeBeers

2. Barry Bonds 56 jacks? We'll take that sort of pampered, self-centered loner any day

3. Sammy Sosa On the other hand, a friendly, smiling slugger is always welcome, too

4. Japan Little League Record Series shares: 100 snow cones and 50 red ropes per player

5. Diamondbacks Luis Gonzalez more popular in Valley of the Sun than central air conditioning.

6. NL pennant races Tighter than Tony Gwynn in spandex

7. Danny Almonte Honestly, he's only 12. It says so right on his birth certificate and voter registration card

8. Expos Dog Day promotion draws 11,785, not including owner Jeffrey Loria

9. "Friends" Will celebrate new season with a very special episode -- they'll show an African-American in the building

10. Budget surplus They neglected to account for A-Rod's salary in original projections

A. Ed Vosberg, who went to the LLWS with a Tucson team, the CWS with the University of Arizona and the World Series with Florida in 1997.

Jim Caple is a Senior Writer for ESPN.com.