Chicago ? “Disappointed” doesn’t begin to describe my feelings about having to deliver the following sad news:

Oscar Gamble believes it’s OK for teams to have regulations about grooming.

That’s right. The man who had an Afro that was so large it made him four inches taller says rules are rules. Hold on a second. A mere measurement doesn’t do Gamble’s ‘do justice, doesn’t capture the sheer magnificence of a head of hair that scoffed at the idea of being restrained by a baseball helmet.

This was an Afro that spilled gloriously out of his cap, an Afro that looked something like a dark, super-cell storm cloud, an Afro that made a cap look as if it were holding on for dear life. If a decent gust kicked up, you figured the aeronautical design of the wings on either side of Gamble’s cap was such that he could go airborne at any moment.

“Remember back when nobody could wear facial hair or long sideburns?” he said Tuesday. “All that changed with the Oakland A’s in 1970s. I was with Cleveland, and me and Dave Duncan started wearing long hair.

“It grew on me, I guess.”

That’s a hair joke. But Oscar, my man, it’s hard to laugh knowing that a former ballplayer who toiled for 17 years in the majors, including a wonderful season on the South Side, has abandoned his follicles and his faculties and joined the enemy.

Those of us who believe players should be able to wear their hair how they want to are feeling betrayed right now.

Gamble

White Sox Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf has ordered A.J. Pierzynski and Joe Crede to get their flowing locks cut.

Rise up and refuse to groom, boys!

“It’s just different rules for different teams,” Gamble said from his home in Montgomery, Ala. “They have the right to tell you how they want you to look or how they want you to wear their uniform. I don’t see anything wrong with that.”

But that Afro, Oscar. That mountain of hair – that Everest of hair! – was there for no other reason than because it could be. Remember?

He started growing it long in 1974 when he was with the Indians.

“At the time, I was trying to get more playing time,” Gamble said. “I was trying to be noticed so I could get in the lineup a little more. I thought the hair was one way of getting noticed. They remember you.”

He went to the Sox in 1977 with what he called his “halfway-Afro – not a big, old Afro.” He hit .297 with 31 home runs and 83 runs batted in that season. So, no, there was no Samson effect.

“It was a lot of fun, but it was time,” said Gamble, 56, who counsels young ballplayers about the college and pro game. “To tell you the truth, I thought it made me faster.”

But here we are, almost 20 years later, still talking about hair. It’s surprising it’s still an issue in sports. In the 1960s, long hair carried political, counter-cultural messages.

Now, it’s just hair. Or should be.

And if Gamble owned a team, would he have rules banning long hair?

“It would depend, but I don’t think so,” he said. “Then again, I’m a little older now. Life looks a little different when you’re 20 or 21.”

He wears his hair short now. So sad.