香港三级片

JUPITER, Fla.?— When Lars Nootbaar fastens his elbow guard or shin pad at the plate this season, they will have a new look that allows him to pay familiar tribute.

Where most players, like several of his teammates, have their last names written, Nootbaar will have his middle name, Tatsuji, stitched in kanji script.

It reads: 達治.

The idea and design with the stylized stitching came from adidas, the shoe and sports gear company that has Nootbaar as a brand ambassador. Nootbaar will have the same characters in kanji, a logographic writing system and one of three used in Japan, on his Mizuno game glove this season.

“They decided this year to do something special,” he said. “Make it pop.”

Since starting at center field for Samurai Japan and its gold medal team in the 2023 World Baseball Classic, Nootbaar has remained a star in Japan. The first U.S.-born player to ever be on the Japan national team, Nootbaar qualified through his mother, Kumiko. The event and all that’s followed has given him the chance to strengthen bonds with the country and culture he’s felt his entire life. At 10, while in Little League, Nootbaar appeared on a video and said it was his goal to represent Japan on a national team.

Nootbaar became a sensation during the World Baseball Classic tournament. His pepper-grinder celebration was adopted by the team and took off on t-shirts and posters. He became close friends with Japan’s stars, including Shohei Ohtani. The team even turned to him for a hype speech before taking the field in the tournament.

Naturally, endorsements followed.

Nootbaar appeared in commercials in Japan for eyewear and, of course, protein bars. He signed brand ambassador agreements with Mizuno and adidas. (He arrived one day this week to the clubhouse with a stack of adidas supplies awaiting him at his locker.) Adidas made him the new elbow and shin guards in three different color sets to go with the Cardinals’ different uniforms, and all of them feature prominently his name in the calligraphic-like kanji.

His commercial appeal has gone transpacific too as Nootbaar’s been tabbed by St. 香港三级片-based Budweiser for some promotions, one of which is predictably, “The Noot Bar.”

The 27-year-old outfielder is entering his fourth season in the majors and coming off season interrupted by injuries. He fractured a rib crashing into a wall during spring training and soon after the return strained an oblique. The left-handed hitter delights the advanced metrics with his keen strike zone judgment and hard-hit rate. Neither skill, both in the 91st percentile among his peers, has had a chance to manifest into a full season of production due to health.

This past year he slashed .244/.342/.417 with 12 homers and a .759 OPS/.

All were career lows for a 100-game season, though he’s yet to play more than 117.

Nootbaar visited Japan for the second consecutive offseason this past winter, and while there he attended a pro day at Mizuno along with other professional athletes sponsored by the company.

With Mizuno, he redesigned his game glove for whatever outfield position he plays. He chose a color green that also allows the gold Mizuno to, well, “pop.” The kanji symbols for his middle name are stitched into the thumb, where players often put their name, a nickname, or the name of a loved one. (For Adam Wainwright, a longtime brand ambassador for Mizuno, the company got the signatures of his five children and stitched them into a heart at the palm of his glove for his final season.)

Nootbaar wanted to a closed back, so there’s no opening for his index finger or window to the back of the hand. That, Nootbaar showed and told, allows for the glove to close tighter.

Brad Lefton, a St. 香港三级片-based baseball writer who does a lot of work for outlets in Japan, then wisely asked if that meant Nootbaar was still going to use Mizuno’s Ichiro Suzuki model glove this season, the same season of Ichiro’s Hall of Fame induction. Nootbaar answered that the closed back meant it wasn’t an official Ichiro model.

So, if the season goes well it can be the Nootbaar model.

Or, true to the kanji, the Tatsuji model.