This story was excerpted from Ian Browne’s Red Sox Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox. MLB digital content fellow Perla Paredes pinch-hit on this edition.
MIAMI -- On the Red Sox’ last trip to New York City in early June, the club added a key figure to its clubhouse with a stature measuring only about a foot long. After that trip, the Red Sox hold the best record in MLB at 46-23.
Bowser, a character from the Super Mario Bros. franchise, is now part of the traveling party thanks to Jarren Duran, who traded for Bowser with a fan with some memorabilia. Now, it travels in the laundry hamper.
“There [was] a fan in New York that had it down the third-base line for Willson [Contreras],” Duran said. “He wanted to give it to us, and it just kind of turned into like the team's mascot.
Bowser hangs on one of the tables in the clubhouse before games. He ends up in someone’s locker after that player is named “Player of the Game.”
For Contreras, he adopted the nickname when Trevor Story told him that he looks like Bowser. He had heard it once when he was with the Cardinals but didn’t pay too much attention to it at the time until he arrived in Boston.
“[I asked Story], 'Who is Bowser?'" Contreras said in Spanish. “They then showed me the character and I liked it. Story then had a T-shirt made for me.”
The team wore a black shirt with Bowser in a hitter stance and Contreras’ No. 40 on April 10. For him, it is vital to have those types of traditions. He also sported a Bowser bat during the Home Run Derby.
“It is very important to maintain the chemistry within the team,” said Contreras, who was an All-Star this year. “To look for ways to connect with one another. And to always be present for one another.”
It’s also fun for them.
When Duran hit a walk-off single on June 28 against the Yankees in the 10th inning, his teammates ripped off his jersey and passed it around. So equipment manager Tom McLaughlin told the players to put it on Bowser.
“Every time we hit a walk-off, we add the jersey onto it,” Duran said. “My jersey's on there, [Caleb] Durbin's jersey is on there, and then [Wilyer Abreu’s] jersey is on there now. So there's like three jerseys on them right now.
“Those jerseys always get torn off for the walk-offs. So, we just add them onto Bowser, and they just travel with us.”
Durbin hit a 13th-inning walk-off single on Aug. 6 before Abreu most recently did it against the Giants on Saturday. So now, Bowser wears the yellow jersey with the No. 52 on the back. The other jerseys are covered in infield dirt, with most of the buttons torn up.
“It's always been my dream to have some fun stuff like that,” Duran said. “To be able to joke around with and and have fun and keep the boys loose and just kind of enjoy baseball like we were kids again. So it's been super fun.”
For interim manager Chad Tracy, it is about the players recognizing one another no matter the outcome of the game.
“A lot of teams have their own little thing that they do, and it's good,” Tracy said. “More than anything, whether it's the Bowser character or whatever, it's more about the end. I've said this a lot, big league games are hard to win. There's a lot of prep that goes into it. So for the players to be able to celebrate regardless. ...
“It's about the team being together and celebrating that the ultimate goal was to win a Major League Baseball game, and we did. And they get to recognize each other. That's what it's mostly about.”
The Red Sox have gone from 14 games under .500 to 14 games over .500 in 62 days, the second-shortest turnaround of its kind in MLB history. After their series win against Miami, the Sox are only 2 1/2 games behind the Yankees for the top AL Wild Card spot.
The Red Sox and Yankees will begin a four-game set in the Bronx on Friday. And there’s a chance they'll face each other in the postseason.
But all they know is that Bowser will be there.