JUPITER, Fla. _ He's cut more Cardinals than a general manager. His name is Hugo Tandron, but no one knows that. He goes by Juice. He's renowned around Major League Baseball, and he's a Cardinals spring training staple. Once a week, he's here at camp, cutting the hair of your favorite players.
The coolest hair on the team? "Dex, man," Juice said of Dexter Fowler. "Also, I used to have a lot of fun cutting Marcell Ozuna. Yadi � he always has different styles. Waino switches up his style all the time. He was like, 'Don't give me the boring white guy haircut.' So I spice it up a lot. Waino's awesome. We all have a really good relationship."
Juice has been coming to Cardinals camp since the days of Edgar Renteria and Fernando Tatis. Juice even flew out to Busch Stadium for the 2012 National League Division Series to cut the hair of Jon Jay of the Cards and Edwin Jackson, a former Card pitching for Washington.
"I've been doing spring training for the Cardinals, Marlins and Nationals for a long time now," said Juice, 49, who is based in Miami. "I usually make the drive over Sunday night, I'll stay over and then at 5:30 I'll start setting up. And the guys start coming in. I'll be there until the last guy needs a haircut.
"Last week, I cut Dexter, Jordan Hicks, Waino and his son. I cut Waino's son's hair � he said it was his son's first real haircut. It's awesome. When guys have that much faith in me to cut their kids' hair? It makes me feel good. They trust me, you know what I'm saying?"
Juice is around the Marlins during the season � even has his own setup in their stadium. Over the years, he's cut the hair of legends such as Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson and Vida Blue, and current stars such as Giancarlo Stanton and Marcus Stroman. Juice was close with a fellow Miami Cuban, the late Jose Fernandez, a former Marlins All-Star who tragically died in 2016.
Juice grew up in a rough part of Miami called Carol City. His mom was a beautician, so "I was always intrigued by (cutting hair). She'd always have clippers laying around. I wanted to get all the new, latest styles, but that was the street stuff, and she'd say, 'You're not going to get a hoodlum haircut!' She wanted me to have the nice, Cuban kid hair with the little curls, and I just wasn't having it.
"So I started messing around and giving myself my own haircuts. It went a little too short sometimes. She'd be at home: 'Who cut your hair?' 'I did it myself.' And she'd say, 'There's no way you did it yourself.' I guess I had a gift or something. I was about 14, 15.
"I started cutting my little brother's hair and kids in the neighborhood. All of a sudden I'd have a line outside my house. Guys used to tell me: 'What do you want?' And I'd say, 'A pack of cigarettes or quart of beer.'
"I went through a lot of (stuff) when I was a young kid, man. I was kind of hard-headed, a little knucklehead. Got in trouble for it, paid the price. .... One night, we were at a local club. We were under-aged, and we were hanging out in the parking lot. We got into an altercation in the parking lot with some dudes. A gun got pulled out � a gun to my face. He wanted to pull the trigger, and by the grace of God, it jammed. So I'm here today. I'm here today."
So, how did Juice get involved with MLB stars? In the 1990s, he owned a home in Carol City where he'd cut hair. He was friends with some local rappers, who were in contact with MLB star Gary Sheffield, who's from the area.
"Gary said, 'Where's his shop?' And they said, 'In the laundry room of his house.' 'What the (bleep)?' And he came to my house. Sheff was my first. And he brought in other guys. Little by little. I met Livan Hernandez, Devon White. By 1997, I was cutting the majority of the team at my house."
The 1997 Marlins were the best-groomed team in baseball and also the best team in baseball � World Series champs, thanks to a game-winning, Game 7 hit by future Cardinal Renteria.
Juice doesn't have a set price for MLB players. It's just kind of understood that they take care of him after the cut. When Juice began cutting hair officially, he charged $4. Now, at his shop in Miami called Headz Up, he charges $50.
Juice has a shaved head and a fantastically thick beard. He sports dozens of tattoos, some in homage to Carol City. His two tattoos that stand out the most are the small hair clippers near his left eye ... and the tattoo over his left eye. He literally shaved his eye brow and instead has the horizontal word: Blessed.
"Just to remind myself every day that I'm blessed, man," Juice said.
