April 24, 2011
Major-league stars help drive the cleat market
Red Sox star Dustin Pedroia partnered with New Balance to create a new shoe to help his rehab. (photo: Getty Images)
Editor’s note: This article first appeared in the April 2011 issue of New England Baseball Journal.
Thanks to Red Sox second baseman Dustin Pedroia, you will be seeing a lot of red-and-black camouflage shoes with white laces this summer.
You’ll be seeing them when Pedroia plays, and, because New Balance is selling the same model to the general public, you will no doubt see them on diamonds all across the region, maybe even around the country.
The shoe is New Balance’s 1103 model, which includes a basic model and a Dustin Pedroia model. According to Mark Clinard, who manages Team Sports for New Balance, Pedroia’s model has accounted for somewhere between 30 and 40 percent of the model’s sales.
“High school and college athletes are so in tune with what’s happening in the MLB and understand the style of play and the type of play of the icons of the league,” Clinard said. “Dustin is certainly that type of icon that it’s easy to grasp onto how he does things. A lot of kids want to emulate the way he plays the game and his style and those types of things.”
Pedroia and New Balance partnered to create a new shoe in part to help Pedroia rehab a fractured left foot, an injury he suffered last season. Pedroia proved to be an eager partner and actively participated in the design process. His mark is all over the shoe, from the red-and-black camouflage that serves as a tribute to the armed forces to tongue design to the fact that the shoes are low to the ground.
At least one of his ideas, having white laces contrasting with a black shoe, will carry beyond his own model.
“Going forward, we’ve got some product coming out next year that all have this, what
we call ‘the crinkle lace’ from our running shoes,” Clinard said.
Other custom touches, such as padding designed to protect Pedroia’s left foot when he’s playing second base, were designed with a specific medical need in mind and won’t be available in the retail product.
Typically, a particular pro athlete’s influence on a shoe design will be somewhat limited to tinkering with a product that has already been created — you will rarely see a brand-new technology created for a specific player. Many athletes, Clinard said, will say, “bring me a shoe that works and takes care of my performance needs and I would like to have a heavy impact on color and materials. Whereas other athletes are genuinely engaged in and fascinated by the design process and how it all comes together.”
Designers will get input from an athlete and take their specific needs into account when they create a model. A pitcher such as the Rockies' Ubaldo Jimenez, who endorses New Balance, has needs different than a second baseman in terms of functionality and mechanics.
“Balance is a key part of what he does,” Clinard said. “So as he works into his wind-up, he needs balance as he approaches the plate. We took that into account in how we built the sole plate, where the spikes are.”
A pro athlete’s endorsement can help a certain technology or design sink or swim in the marketplace. Thomas Wood, Reebok’s product manager for cleated footwear, has seen his products endorsed by popular athletes such as Sox slugger David Ortiz and pitcher Josh Beckett.
“It’s very important to have your latest and greatest technologies worn by the athletes on the greatest stage, being obviously Major League Baseball,” Wood said. “It authenticates your product. All the younger kids aspire to be that individual. That means that the athlete believes in your technology, so therefore the kids look up to that athlete, they also believe in the technology.”
But pro endorsements can also be iffy, especially in baseball, where regional loyalties can make it harder to find an athlete who transcends his team’s appeal. Plus, unlike basketball shoes, which are more multipurpose, baseball shoes have no real application outside of the game.
“You wear cleats for a specific task,” Wood said. “Nobody is wearing baseball cleats to school. You just buy baseball cleats to play baseball in them.”
On-field performance is, then, a key selling point for baseball shoes. If a pro athlete is productive, players at lower levels will be more willing to give the products that pro athlete uses a try. New Balance believes this is especially true with Pedroia.
“A lot of kids want to emulate the way he plays the game and his style and those types of things,” Clinard said. “If athletes know that their favorite athlete had input into the product, it makes it very easy to create that link and that demand for high school and college kids.
“I think what the athlete brings is that performance input,” he adds, “that it works for him on (the) field.”
Nick A. Zaino III can be reached at feedback@baseballjournal.com
