See how WooSox players honor loved ones with their baseball equipment

Worcester — Payton Tolle, the rookie pitcher for Triple-A Worcester, began the season donning a black baseball glove on his right hand with the words "You're so pretty" engraved on it. The phrase belonged to his late mother, Jina, who used to say those three words to her eldest son before all his baseball, basketball, and football games. Tolle told the Telegram & Gazette this spring, "She's always there and watching over me."

Similarly, WooSox infielder Mikey Romero honors his father, Mike, who passed away from head and neck cancer on February 14, 2024, by wearing a belt with the quote "Should be hitting" on it. Romero explained on the Cassell's Corner podcast this summer, "It's just kind of something to honor him, but it's something that we always say.

And if I was playing video games or if I was doing something that wasn't hitting, he'd always come up to me and say, 'You should be hitting' or for example now my (three) sisters will text in (our) group chat, 'Should be hitting' — it's a motto that we kind of always keep."

Mickey Gasper, the current Red Sox designee hitter, wears a picture of himself and his late father, Mick, who played for an over-40s baseball team in New Jersey, on the bottom of his bat. Gasper shared with the Telegram & Gazette, "I'd tag along and bat boy and do what I could to stay out of the way." The picture, showing Gasper in a blue Roy Hobbs Baseball League T-shirt and his dad in a New Jersey 40s T-shirt, is displayed in his room and serves as a source of joy for the player.