PHOENIX – Ryan McKenna had seen a pair of his teammates order the outfit online, so he wasn’t totally blindsided when Gunnar Henderson and Adley Rutschman pulled off what could be their most audacious look yet.
Still, the finished product was something to behold.
“They let it rock,” McKenna said.
Out walked Henderson and Rutschman for their flight from Baltimore to Phoenix on Wednesday night in preparation for the Orioles’ series against the Arizona Diamondbacks wearing overalls. Not any old overalls, though.
The legs were cut short. They wore no shirt underneath. They took the Orioles’ road trip theme — the James McCann-created “Jorts and J’s” — to the next level.
“Just had to go one step further than just normal jorts,” Henderson said. “I’ve been known to do that with some of my outfits. Even back in high school, I loved going over the top for homecoming dress-up days and stuff like that, so it was right up my alley.”
The rest of Baltimore’s clubhouse followed McCann’s road trip theme in a more conservative form. They wore jorts with Jordan shoes and tank tops. Grayson Rodriguez repurposed the same cut-off jorts he wore during the spring training clubhouse talent show, adding a sleeveless denim jacket to complete his outfit.
Rutschman and Henderson, though, concocted the idea to use overalls and ordered a pair on Amazon. Then, they cut the denim to make short shorts, and they completed the look with their personal touches: Henderson with a wide-brimmed hat; Rutschman with sunglasses.
“They loved it,” Henderson said of the reaction. “I did see a lot of people saying it was just my normal attire.”
Henderson, in fact, doesn’t normally walk around in cut-off overalls.
Most major league clubhouses partake in road trip theme days for flights. The Orioles did a jersey day earlier in the year, with one trip requiring hockey sweaters and another in which they wore NBA jerseys.
Then there’s the individual shenanigans, such as when Ryan Mountcastle, Colton Cowser, Rutschman and Henderson wore colorful jumpsuits with shades as they entered Camden Yards in early August.
That time, Cowser unsuccessfully tried to get the foursome to wear the outfits at the end of the game, too.
“It was pretty funny looking,” Mountcastle said in August. “We went on Amazon and just did some shopping and got some jumpsuits and some sunglasses that we thought looked funny. I think we pulled it off pretty decent.”
Mountcastle didn’t join Henderson and Rutschman this time. He admired the outfits from a distance, instead.
“Overalls are sick,” Mountcastle said. “The no shirt underneath was great,” adding that they exuded confidence with the look.
Henderson has a habit of head-turning attire choices. He said he once dressed up in high school as Larry Culpepper from the Dr. Pepper commercials, with a vendor’s tray of soda, a visor and coach headset on.
And, perhaps because he grew up in Selma, Alabama, the reaction wasn’t as full of surprise when he unveiled his cut-off overalls. But Rutschman, from Sherwood, Oregon?
“I can believe it coming more from Gunnar,” Rodriguez said. “Seeing Adley in that is definitely a sight. It looks more like a Halloween costume, but just a lot of fun. Glad we have a team that can do things like that: keep it loose, keep it relaxed.”
