Why LSU baseball jokester Paul Skenes started wearing T-shirts with pictures of teammates
BATON ROUGE – Paul Skenes is a playful guy; goofy even.
In high school, he dressed up as Morris Buttermaker from "The Bad News Bears" during an intrasquad scrimmage. His LSU baseball teammates have consistently noted his lighthearted nature and sense of humor, even joining Brayden Jobert in some of his voodoo doll rituals.
But that's not most people's first impression of Skenes, a towering 6-foot-6, 247-pound pitcher who spent two years at the Air Force Academy. It's why when he does show his playful side, it catches people off-guard, therefore becoming more effective in the process.
So when Skenes showed up to a start at the beginning of the year wearing a T-shirt with various pictures of Cade Beloso plastered all over it, all Beloso could do was laugh.
"It was super funny," Beloso said. "I was the first one and it was just a bunch of different random pictures of me, but it's funny. He gets everyone to sign it after and yeah, he loves it."
The success of the Beloso shirt kicked off a new tradition for Skenes. Since that day, he's shown up at the park to each of his starts with a shirt featuring various pictures of somebody on the team.
"They come in and they don't know they're going to be on the shirt and then they're just like, 'that's me,' " Skenes said. "I'm wearing it to warm up. It's cool to see their reactions ... hopefully, I make their day better."
It all started before the season began when Skenes was Googling different teammates' names to see if there were any jerseys he could purchase. That's when he stumbled upon the Beloso shirt.
Skenes bought the shirt, but it took a couple of weeks before he knew what he wanted to do with it.
"I'm like, 'I should probably do something with this,' " Skenes said. "(So) I wore it to warm up one day and I just like latched onto that idea which was a different guy each week."
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Among those who have been bestowed the honor of having a Skenes shirt, besides Beloso, are Hayden Travinski, Griffin Herring and Josh Pearson. And this past Friday, Tommy White was on his shirt.
Most of the pictures that end up on each shirt, according to Beloso, are funny photos ripped from the team group chat. Skenes also doesn't tell anyone on the team who he's wearing until he shows up at the park that day.
"Paul just kind of randomly chooses someone he wants to laugh at that week I guess," Beloso said.
Skenes' T-shirt ritual is another example of how he "tries to fill everyone's buckets." By keeping the energy within the locker room light and fun, LSU is able to foster an environment that helps players become better mentally prepared for success.
Sometimes a few laughs can go a long way.
"On days where he's not pitching and we're still playing, he's out there in the dugout having fun, keeping it loose with the guys," Jordan Thompson said. "So he's really just a great veteran type of guy and leader that any team would love to have."
Koki Riley covers LSU sports for The Daily Advertiser. Email him at kriley@theadvertiser.com and follow him on Twitter at @KokiRiley.
This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU baseball: Paul Skenes' T-shirt tradition, including Tommy White
