All posts with the 'Easton' tag appear below.
First-Half Recap: Chicago Cubs
There was a lot to cover when it came to the Cubs’ cleats, it took me a little while to put this one together…
The cleats above belong to Derrek Lee, Mark DeRosa, Ryan Theriot, Ronny Cedeno, Daryle Ward, Aramis Ramirez, Carlos Zambrano, and Alfonso Soriano. As you can see, there’s a growing trend of bold red accents in the Cubbies’ footwear, and that’s something that I really like — the blue and red together mesh really well with Chicago’s classic uniforms. More details on these cleats (as well as a few mysterious cases of cleat-sharing) after the jump, and as always, larger views of all of these are available in the Player Exclusive Gallery.
Schneider Max MVP, Other Recent MLB PE’s
It’s time to check in with some new stuff from around baseball…
(AP Photo/Kathy Willens)
Brian Schneider recently started wearing a new Max MVP PE. It looks like these have white patent accents on the upper (and grey patent on the away PE at upper right), orange MCS outsoles, and blue Air units. I’ll work on finding some views of these without all of the catchers gear in the way, but these look impressive so far.
First-Half Recap: Boston Red Sox
Up until this point, these recaps have been dominated by Nike… I’m happy to bring some attention to the other brands, and the Sox are one of the most diverse teams in the league in terms of footwear branding. The cleats below are the models that have been worn by Manny Ramirez, Jason Varitek, Julio Lugo, Dustin Pedroia, and Jonathan Papelbon:
As always, larger versions of the above renderings can be seen in the PE Gallery… more info on all of these models (and a couple others) after the jump.
MLB Trade Deadline: PE Aftermath
The MLB trade deadline is always a great time for baseball… teams gear up to make playoff runs, superstars swap uniforms, and new cleats are customized with new colors. Here’s the breakdown of how this year’s deadline affects the a handful of MLB cleats…
(PlayerExclusive.com Photo Illustration; Original Photos by Jim Rogash/Getty Images and Al Behrman/AP Photo)
Manny Ramirez to the Dodgers: This was the most shocking trade of the bunch, and I’m really looking forward to what Nike customizes for Manny. My Photoshopped image above shows him in a Dodger-ized PE of the Fuse cleats he’s recently been wearing in Boston, and while it’d be great to see something like that in LA, here’s my guess about what will happen: he’ll start off by wearing a blue GR of the 5-Tool or Fuse, and he’ll break out a new Fuse PE or maybe even a Max MVP PE in a couple of weeks. I also wouldn’t be surprised if he just went with the white / blue Max MVP… Russell Martin has already worn these for a couple of games this month, so the Dodgers are apparently one of the few teams getting these.
Ken Griffey Jr. to the White Sox: This one is confusing for the White Sox, great for Griffey, and awful for footwear. With white, black, red, and grey, Griffey was able to lace up a ton of different colorways of his Swingman Remix signature cleat in Cincinnati. Now that he’s with the Sox, we’ll probably only be seeing black / black, black / white, and black / grey… hopefully Nike will mix it up and start doing new colorblocking on the different upper elements.
Red Sox-Yankees Weekend Series Cleats
Sox-Yankees games are great for many reasons, but one of the best things about them is that they’re all photographed like it’s the World Series, making for some great footwear shots. Here’s a couple good views of some recent cleats:
Here’s a better shot of the new David Ortiz signature shoe… he wore these during his recent rehab assignment, but they made their MLB debut this weekend. I’m guessing Reebok hasn’t made him a black version yet; he wore his black ‘08 sigs on Saturday.
(Photo by AP Photo/Charles Krupa)
UPDATE: This model is now available at Eastbay (thanks to rbkguy for pointing this out). It’s called the Big Papi 2M Mid II, and the product image can be seen here.
Easton MLB All-Star Game PE’s
They sometimes get overshadowed by the corporate giants in baseball footwear, but Easton has done some really incredible work over the past few years. They do two things in particular really well: they make a great cleat, and they hook up almost all of their MLB players with really nice looking PE’s.
Dustin Pedroia Mojo Athcleat All-Star PE
As you can see, they really pulled out all the stops for their All-Star Game Mojo Athcleat PE’s. Each shoe featured a self screened Yankee Stadium mural that changes depending on the light, an “NYC 2008″ graphic on the outer heel (with Babe Ruth’s face as one of the zeros), team-colored midsole / upper accents, a chrome outsole, gold cleats, player names by the laces, and player numbers or logos on the heel. Dustin Pedroia’s PE’s appear above; the player exclusives they produced for Hanley Ramirez, Aramis Ramirez, and Cristian Guzman are pictured below.
Thanks to Michael Pratt for the photos.
Hanley Ramirez Mojo Athcleat All-Star PE
2008 MLB All-Star Game: Player Exclusives
One of my favorite things about the MLB All-Star cleats is the fact that it’s the only day that players wear colorways that they couldn’t wear otherwise. They’re able to disregard the “dominant cleat color” uniform rule and wear whatever they want, which means that we’ve seen a lot of white, grey, silver, and non-team colored cleats over the past few years. Even though I’ve always gravitated towards more conservative designs in baseball, I always look forward to seeing the bizarre colorways from the Midsummer Classic.
This year, there were so many All-Star PE’s that I actually had to split the ASG footwear into two posts (new releases post is here). The top PE’s appear below.
It’s not much of a surprise that Alex Rodriguez wore a white PE of his signature cleat — he’s worn white Shox cleats at the All-Star Game for the past few years. This PE featured embroidery on each cleat (the date on the shoe above, and “NEW YORK” on his other cleat), and additional views are available here and here.
(Photo by Nick Laham / Getty Images)
Albert Pujols wore the most attractive white PE in the game — they’re pretty simple, but they’re my favorite model from last night. These featured a Nike Air Max MVP upper, a 5-Tool Zoom Air midsole, and a white MCS outsole. Unfortunately, not too many photos of these were out there tonight… this is the only other decent view I could find. If anyone has any better shots of these, please get in touch.
(Photo by Jim McIsaac / Getty Images)
Welcome to PlayerExclusive.com!
Hello, and thanks for visiting PlayerExclusive.com. Before I get into the details about what this site is all about, let me just tell you what will be featured on here over the next few months. Later this year, PlayerExclusive.com will cover the PE’s worn in college football and basketball as well as in the NFL and NBA, but for now you’ll only be seeing the custom shoes worn in current sports. As you can see, the first item being covered are the PE footwear and new releases being worn at the MLB All-Star festivities, but the Olympics, NFL training camps, NBA offseason, and daily MLB play will also be covered over the course of this summer.
The idea behind this site is to basically have a photo-oriented version of Uni Watch for pro/collegiate sports footwear — instead of following uniform elements, we’ll be following unique custom footwear (and occasionally equipment elements) from major American sports. There are plenty of other footwear blogs out there, but they mostly cover retail sneakers. Here at PlayerExclusive.com, we’re only concerned the about what’s worn on the field or on the court. The posts made on this site will include game photos, close-up shots of custom footwear, and Photoshop renderings of PE’s.
Now, chances are that if you’ve found this site, you’re well-versed in footwear terminology, but for those of you who aren’t aware, a “player exclusive” (or PE) is special colorway of a shoe made for a specific athlete. They often use different materials and technical components than general release models, and they typically feature custom embroidery and other personalized elements to make the product unique to the player wearing it. PE’s will be the primary focus of this site, but news about new releases, brand signings, and other sports equipment will occasionally be mentioned as well.
This site is technically still being developed, so please just be patient for now. If you have any comments, suggestions, or if you’ve spotted something that you think should be featured on this site, please feel free to email me here (don’t worry–I won’t be sending you any spam). Just include your name and I’ll be sure to give you credit.
Thanks… and by the way, my name is Mark. I hope you’ll be visiting PlayerExclusive.com again soon!
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