Constable: Cubs' Javy Baez bares it all on ESPN magazine cover
In May, I found myself agreeing with those Cubs fans who were clamoring to see more of slick-fielding, explosive-hitting Javier Baez, a versatile athlete who started the season batting ninth and sometimes sitting the bench.
We should have been more specific.
Naked photos of Javy Baez are more popular in my social media feeds this week than retweets from the Obama era of outraged Republicans demanding that any health care bill get a full public debate. The cheeky Baez photos are all part of ESPN the Magazine's annual Body Issue, which hits the internet on July 5 and newsstands on July 8 and shows athletes, men and women, doing their sports while naked.
I think it's the modern version of using nudity to boost sales while providing evidence that the magazine is dedicated to fitness. Sort of like how you used to be able to pick up a copy of Playboy to read a William F. Buckley piece, or buy the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition to check out the scenic beaches of Phuket.
Baez is shown from the backside, wearing only his baseball mitt (not even cleats), as he gets ready to fire a baseball to somebody in an Arizona desert. Another photo shows him from the side, holding his baseball bat. Another shows him batting in some large box where his shadow can be seen on the back wall. Let's hope he was wearing sunscreen.
Fans should have nothing against a nude Baez — other than the way professional, X-rated photographs of the body of a 24-year-old, super-fit professional athlete can make all the men wearing XL Baez jerseys feel a tad flabby and long for the days when a pudgy Babe Ruth was baseball's cover boy. The Baez nude images are going to be circulated by women, men and probably even other infielders. And reading all of Baez's tattoos is more interesting than Buckley's Playboy essay on Russia.
Nudity, while it still rubs some Americans the wrong way and can get your IT staff at the office to pass along your name to Human Resources, isn't a crime. The Baez photos are less revealing than Sandro Botticelli's painting “The Birth of Venus.” Like much of the online nudity, the Baez photos were shot with an iPhone 7, too.
But, as a long-suffering Cubs fan who is still coping with the baseball bends after going from a lifetime of lovable losers to rooting for the defending World Series champs, I worry. Can a nude photo shoot mess with a player's performance?
Last year, reigning Cy Young winner and Cubs' ace pitcher Jake Arrieta posed naked for ESPN the Magazine. You'd think Statcast would have broken this all down for us by now, but I'm just guessing that Arrieta's statistics were better before his nude photos hit the internet and newsstands. His ERAAN (Earned Run Average After Nudity) had to have been worse than his ERAWWCFGS (Earned Run Average While Wearing Clothes For God's Sake). But the Cubs still won the World Series.
“My wife, Brittany, was like, 'You'd better do it. I'll be mad if you don't do it,'” Arrieta said in an ESPN interview at the time, explaining why he posed. He was pitching naked, probably in the same desert where Baez was batting naked.
The only downside Arrieta mentioned was, “It was kind of strange doing it barefoot.”
Arrieta wasn't the only local naked athlete in that magazine. Basketball star Dwyane Wade of the Bulls, WNBA all-star Elena Delle Donne, then with the Chicago Sky. female soccer player Christen Press of the Chicago Red Stars, and former Lake Zurich resident Chris Mosier, the first transgender member of the U.S. national triathlon team, all had some skin in the game.
“Every body has a story,” Baez tweeted as he posted one of his more modest photos. Baez went 1-for-4 in his first game after the nude photos appeared, then sat the bench in Wednesday's 3-2 loss to the San Diego Padres. If he hits and fields and the Cubs win, no one will care about what Baez wears for photo shoots. But we would like to see him add a second World Series Champions tattoo to that body.