This story was excerpted from Anthony DiComo’s Mets Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
NEW YORK -- Before giving birth to the family’s first child, Chelsea Nimmo was the sort of person constantly looking to nurture animals and plants, to foster dogs, to care for living things. Brandon Nimmo always saw those qualities in his wife.
So Nimmo hasn’t been surprised to see Chelsea embrace motherhood since the couple’s first child, a daughter named Tatum, arrived in November.
“I mean, she’s a rock star,” Nimmo said last week, as he prepared to celebrate Chelsea’s first Mother’s Day as a mom. “It’s like a switch flips when they become a mother. She’s willing to do whatever it takes in order for Tatum to be safe and be happy and be taken care of. She just loves her to death and will do anything for her. So you can tell it right from the beginning. I think she would even say it’s opened up a side of her that she had heard about before.”
Brandon and Chelsea met when the former was playing for Low-A Savannah of the South Atlantic League in 2013. The couple began dating the following summer and were married in 2017 -- Chelsea, a registered nurse, and Brandon, a baseball player.
“We’ve definitely grown as individuals throughout the relationship,” Nimmo said. “If we went back and met our 2014 selves, we’d be quite a bit different -- obviously with some core values right at the center of it. But it’s been fun to see the process grow. And then to be parents now, we still kind of have to pinch ourselves sometimes. It’s just crazy how fast the time goes.”
In addition to caring for Tatum’s needs, Chelsea has worked to help Brandon balance the responsibilities of becoming a father with those of being the Mets’ starting left fielder. Over the offseason, Nimmo’s priorities changed as the couple weighed what was best for Tatum, versus for themselves.
“Honestly, it’s made me respect and love Chelsea even more, because she just has taken to motherhood like a fish to water. She’s been a rock star through it all. She’s been such a good mom and such a good wife.”