This story was excerpted from Mandy Bell’s Guardians Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.
When Steven Kwan is away from the ballpark, he may log on to Chess.com and ping one of his closest buddies to challenge them to a highly-competitive game of chess. It just so happens that those friends are local students in the Cleveland area.
This is Kwan. And for anyone who may not know him, you can learn everything about his friendly personality from his quick jaunt to left field at the start of every home game. Before he tosses a ball to the center fielder to get warmed up, he waves to all the fans in his left-field corner, welcoming them to Progressive Field.
It’s that inviting nature that makes it so easy for him to connect with kids in the community over a board game. It’s made it easy for him to join Triston McKenzie in his True2U Mentorship program, which helps guide even more students through difficult teenage years. It’s what’s led him to be the Guardians’ 2024 Roberto Clemente Award nominee.
“I think just being mentioned in the same sentence as him is obviously really cool,” Kwan said. “Then obviously José [Ramírez] has been nominated a couple times and just kind of being able to follow in his footsteps is really special.”
And it all started with chess.
In 2022, Kwan and teammate Will Benson were trying to come up with something to do other than video games or simply scrolling through their phones in the clubhouse. Benson had a chess board. They both were beginners and they decided to challenge each other. As the Guardians promoted these battles on social media, they heard from a nearby school that was ranked nationally for its chess club. The school wanted to battle.
Kwan was all in. So, the Guardians hosted the John Marshall High School chess club, which was made up of mostly refugee students who had very little knowledge of baseball. Many of them came from different countries, and they barely spoke the same languages as each other. But they were all connected by chess. It was a perfect marriage: Kwan could teach them about baseball (growing the game to a new audience) and these kids could help make Kwan the best chess player in the clubhouse.
“I realized how there’s just different levels of chess,” Kwan said. “You can feel like you’re so good and then someone [better] comes along.”
Those were high school kids and they were scheduled to play chess against Kwan and a few of his teammates in the Guardians’ dugout before a game for one hour. But Kwan didn’t want the day to end. He begged for more games and the meetup ended up lasting three hours. At the end, Kwan was quick to inform the Guardians that he wanted that to happen at least once a month.
Suddenly, so many friendships were born.
“[They’re] high school kids, they have lives of their own, they’re off at school, they’re telling me how their day-to-day is,” Kwan said. “It’s just really cool to just see them progress through their lives.”
The students were downloading MLB apps to keep up to date with their new favorite team and player. Kwan was keeping up to date with the kids’ personal lives and chess play with frequent visits and online chatting on Chess.com. It’s been hard for him to process the fact that he’s opened up this sport to a new group of people and has become an influence in their lives.
“It’s definitely still surreal. I don’t think I’ve wrapped my head fully around it,” Kwan said. “I still obviously want to do so much more, achieve so much more in this game.”
It’s only fitting that on Sunday for Roberto Clemente Day, Kwan will receive his nomination trophy from Akshar Patel, a chess club alumnus. It’s a rare in-person meetup for Kwan and some of the students who have already graduated and gone on to college.
But don’t worry, they all keep in touch online, playing their favorite game. And the real chess players never hesitate to make sure Kwan knows he’s not at their level.
“They’re still beating me up,” Kwan said with a smile, “and talking smack while they’re doing it.”