This story was excerpted from Brian McTaggart’s Astros Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. -- Every spring, vendors travel throughout the Cactus League and Grapefruit League and set up tables at each team’s facility to try to sell various goods to players like expensive jewelry and high-end suits, and, of course, to provide baseball equipment like gloves, bats and protective gear.
The biggest commotion in Astros camp came earlier this week when the players congregated around a table that featured customizable belts -- a rather new trend in uniform flair. Having colorful cleats and batting gloves and initials and flags on gloves is nothing new, but baseball belts have typically been pretty -- pardon the pun -- uniform.
Enter Matt Hadden, whose Texas-based company, Pioneer Belts, only recently started dabbling in baseball after decades of making weightlifting belts. Hadden’s company can put almost anything players want on belts, within reason. Among the most popular items are initials of family members, their own names or uniform numbers, flags, outdoors scenes and religious symbols. They come in all colors and several materials, including leather and alligator.
“They’re only really limited to their [players’] imagination,” Hadden said. “Obviously, we’ve got to stay in bounds with trademarks and that kind of stuff.”
Astros pitcher J.P. France jumped on the belt craze early, ordering a pair of custom belts last year. One of them is Astros orange with France’s glasses and mustache logo on the outside and Jeremiah 29:11 on the inside. France, an avid bowhunter, ordered more belts this spring.
“The ones that just got made, one’s going to have all of the antlered animals of North America -- moose, caribou, while tail [deer], mule deer and an elk,” he said. “I wanted to try to tie in my kids somehow. Liam is big into trains and dinosaurs so he’s going to have trains and dinosaurs on the inside and their initials are going to be on the inside.”
Mauricio Dubón also caught onto the belts last year and earlier this week delivered personalized belts to each member of the coaching staff. Dubón has several of his own, including an alligator skin belt and a gold belt he says matches the gold patch on his glove he got for winning the 2023 AL Gold Glove at the utility position.
“He sent a belt to [Kyle] Tucker and Tucker just had it in his locker and I said, ‘Whose belt is this?’ He said, ‘Some guy sent it to me,’ and I said, ‘What’s his Instagram?’” Dubón said. “I was like, ‘Hey, I want to order a belt. I’ll pay for it.’ … The belts caught on and the next thing I know I’m hooking everybody up with belts.”
Hadden’s grandfather started the company in 1979, selling weightlifting belts to high school football teams in Western Nebraska and Northern Colorado. Pioneer Belts expanded into baseball in 2023 through a relationship with the University of California baseball team. Last year, a cousin of Hadden who played at Texas A&M helped connect him with former Aggies pitchers Stephen Kolek of the Padres and then Bryce Miller of the Mariners.
“After speaking with them and getting a nod of approval there, we started sending lots of Instagram messages to players to get in touch with them to make belts,” said Hadden, who’s headed the company the past 13 years. “By the end of the 2024 season, we had like 65 big leaguers wearing them and into 2025 we will at least double that to start the season.”
Hadden said his belt company is the third-largest employer in the tiny town of Coleman behind the hospital and the school district. All the belts are made in Coleman. Hadden estimates he sells 70,000 belts a year and 69,000 are powerlifting belts.
“Baseball was never the plan, but it was such an easy transition from weightlifting,” he said. “All the stuff we do on these, we do on the weightlifting side. That’s kind of where we got our popularity from.”
The team provides players with elastic belts that have been standard on uniforms for years, but expressing yourself on your waistband is taking at least one clubhouse by storm.
“That’s the thing I like about,” Dubón said. “That’s the one thing we couldn’t customize and now we can do whatever we want.”