The Secret to the Diamondbacks’ Success? A Special Pair of Shorts

PHILADELPHIA — Plenty of people have strolled through one of the Foot Lockers at the various shopping malls dotting Phoenix and its environs, and many of those patrons have bought Diamondbacks shorts, because they support the team or just think the shorts look cool or both. But only one of those customers plays second base for the Diamondbacks.

“They’re good ones,” says Ketel Marte, who wore them at the ballpark and immediately started getting requests from his teammates. Finally, he went back to the mall and bought the whole rack.

Perhaps this does not seem notable: Professional athlete wears team gear. But most professional athletes do not pay $100 each for the privilege to wear team gear. (“Just 100,” says Marte, which serves as a reminder that last spring he signed a five-year, $76 million contract.) Some professional athletes—many of them in the Phillies’ clubhouse—buy city-themed merchandise, but righty Merrill Kelly, who spent five years in the minor leagues, a season playing winter ball in the Dominican Winter League and four years in South Korea before joining the Diamondbacks, says he has never heard of another player buying team-branded merchandise for himself.

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Marte’s teammates are glad he did. Most of them wear a black pair with “D-Backs” across the front in white and the “A” logo. White side panels feature the logo of the snake eating a baseball on the right leg and the 2001 World Series patch on the side.

“I love them,” says first baseman Christian Walker. “They’re sick.”

They are. But their popularity is frankly insane given the shorts Marte bought catcher Gabriel Moreno, also at Foot Locker for $100: a similar pair but teal and with fire exploding from a baseball.

Moreno says they are his favorite D-Backs gear because of “the color.” Uh, yeah.

Good teammate that he is, Marte correctly guessed sizes. He got Walker a medium, because he likes his clothes tight, and Kelly an extra large, even though he is only listed at 6’ 2”, 202 pounds.

“For some reason, men have decided they want short shorts,” says Kelly, who turned 35 this week. “They don't necessarily fit my body type.”

The Diamondbacks’ hitting, pitching and defense are more likely to affect their championship odds than their attire, but Walker believes touches like this have helped them reach their first National League Championship Series since 2007. (They lost that one in four games to the Rockies, who would lose the World Series to the Red Sox.)

“Over 162 [games], a little edge like that, to keep you interested—it matters,” Walker says.

He plans to wear them for batting practice when the series returns to Chase Field for Game 3. And should the Diamondbacks beat the Phillies for the pennant, he wants to reach out to Foot Locker and ask them for an update: Instead of the World Series patch from 22 years ago, he’d like a pair boasting this season’s title.