This story was extracted from Brian McTaggart’s Astros Beat Newsletter. Click here to read the full newsletter. Subscribe to get regular in your inbox.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. – Every spring, vendors travel to Cactus League and Grapefruitreug, setting up tables at each team’s facilities to sell a variety of items to players, including expensive jewelry and high-end suits.
The biggest fuss at Astros camp came earlier this week when players gathered around a table featuring customizable belts. Raising flags on colorful cleats and batting gloves and gloves is nothing new, but baseball belts were usually pretty – merciless for puns – uniforms.
Matt Hadden, a Texas-based company Pioneer Belt, recently began dabbling in baseball after creating decades of weightlifting belts. Hadden’s company can put almost anything the player wants on the belt. Most popular items include family initials, unique names and uniform numbers, flags, outdoor scenes, and religious symbols. Available in all colors and several materials, including leather and crocodile.
“They’re just really limited to their (player’s) imagination,” Hadden said. “Obviously we have to be bound by trademarks and things like that.”
Astros Pitcher JP France ordered a custom belt last year and jumped into the belt trend. One of them is Astros Orange, with French glasses and mustache logos on the outside, and Jeremiah on the inside at 29:11. Avid bowhunter, France ordered more belts this spring.
“What’s just made will have all the horned animals in North America — moose, caribou, tail (deer), mule deer, elk,” he said. “I wanted to somehow connect the kids. Liam is growing on trains and dinosaurs, so there are trains and dinosaurs inside, and the initials are inside.”
Mauricio Dubon was also caught up in the belt last year, delivering a personalized belt to each member of the coaching staff earlier this week. Dubon has several of his own, including a crocodile skin belt and a golden belt.
“He had just put his belt in his locker for (Kyle) Tucker and Tucker, and he said, ‘Who is this?’ He said, “Some guys sent it to me,” and I said, “What is his Instagram?”,” Dubón said. “I’m ‘Hey, I want to order a belt. I’ll pay for it.” …The belt gets wrapped around, and then what I know is I’m connecting everyone with the belt. ”
Hadden’s grandfather founded the company in 1979, selling weightlifting belts to high school football teams in western Nebraska and northern Colorado. The Pioneer Belt expanded to baseball in 2023 through its relationship with the University of California baseball team. Hadden’s cousin, who played for Texas A&M last year, helped him connect with former Padres Aggies pitcher Stephen Colek and Mariners’ Bryce Miller.
“After talking to them and getting approval, we started sending a lot of Instagram messages to players and getting in touch with them to make a belt,” said Hadden, who has led the company for the past 13 years. “By the end of the 2024 season, 65 big leaguers will wear them, and by 2025 it will at least double and start the season.”
Hadden said his belt company is the third largest employer in the small town of Coleman behind the hospital and school district. All belts are made of Coleman. Hadden estimates he sells 70,000 belts a year, with 69,000 powerlifting belts.
“Baseball was never a plan, but it was an easy transition from weightlifting,” he said. “What we do all of these things is on the weightlifter side. It’s kind of a place where we’ve gained popularity.”
The team has provided players with elastic belts, the standard for uniforms for many years, but expressing themselves with the waistband has taken at least one clubhouse.
“That’s what I love,” Dubon said. “That’s one thing we couldn’t customize and now we can do whatever we want.”
