Solving O’s drink mystery
Schoop reveals players were drinking bottles of coconut water in Camden Yards dugout
| When MASN cameras caught Orioles second baseman Jonathan Schoop and center fielder Adam Jones drinking a clear liquid from a green bottle after both players homered Monday night in the team’s 6-3 win over the Tampa Bay Rays, curiosities flowed on social media about what the players were drinking and whether it was some magical home run elixir.
The truth is that it was no more than a brand of coconut water that the club has stocked in the clubhouse food room at Camden Yards.
Schoop showed off a bottle of the Taste Nirvana brand coconut water inside the Orioles clubhouse before Tuesday’s game, saying he has been drinking it all season.
“I’ve been drinking it since the first day, but maybe yesterday was the first day the cameras saw it,” he said. “Maybe they’ll give us an extra something because everybody sees it. Maybe they’ll want to buy it or we’ll get an endorsement or something.”
Coconut water is a low-calorie, cholesterol-free drink that helps rapidly replace fluids lost through activity, much like mainstream sports drinks, but it's more natural.
Gatorade, however, is the official sports drink of Major League Baseball and is seen in dugouts across the game.
Taste Nirvana claims to be the most premium coconut water because it is harvested and imported from coconut fields in Thailand in small batches and packaged in glass bottles to maintain the water’s original flavor.
“Seeing the footage of Orioles’ Adam Jones and [Jonathan Schoop] drinking from our bright green Taste Nirvana glass bottles (in front of the bright orange coolers of a certain huge sports drink we shall leave unnamed) was so special to us,” Tiffany Wattanaporn, Taste Nirvana’s director of marketing and public relations, wrote in an email.
Schoop said he’s no stranger to coconut water, which is used in part to hydrate the body but has less sugar than most sports drinks. Schoop said he drank coconut water – out of actual coconuts – growing up on the Caribbean island of Curacao.
As for Orioles fans sudden fanaticism about seeing the two sluggers drink it after homering, Schoop was willing to buy into the social-media-created mystique.
“Maybe it gives us some extra power,” Schoop joked. “Who knows?”