Francisco Lindor Makes Statement with Players Weekend Cleats

Cleveland Indians three-time All-Star Francisco Lindor is ready to make a statement with his Players Weekend cleats this weekend in Kansas City.

“For the cleats, I personally always want to impact people by messages,” he says. “This year, I went with hashtags on it. It’s an impactful cleat, and I’m looking forward to letting the world know that I’m with them.”

The custom New Balance COMPv1 cleats fill with hashtags, whether in support of Lindor’s native Puerto Rico or with the #LifeMatters tag.

“Being Puerto Rican, we went through a lot of things this past year with the hurricane,” Lindor said. “With no electricity, no water, no food, not being able to communicate with people. I’m with them, I’m thinking about them. I have them on my cleats. There’s not a day that goes by I took it for granted of what they went through, because I was not in Puerto Rico, I was playing, but there is not a day that goes by I don’t think about them.”

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He put the life matters mantra on there as a way to encourage others to care for each other.

"I’m a kid that plays the game and loves the game, cares about people and what is going on in the world,” he said. “I just want the word to be a better place.”

The second annual Players Weekend relaxes MLB rules on uniforms, encouraging players to use nicknames on the uniform nameplate and allowing for quite a bit of leeway on the cleats.

“My favorite part of Players Weekend is you get to show your personality the most,” Lindor said. “You get to show as many colors as you want, you can dress how you want.”

Tim Newcomb covers gear and business for Baseball America. Follow him on Twitter at @tdnewcomb.