Players get artsy with custom cleats

When Joc Pederson takes the field for Israel in the World Baseball Classic in Miami, he’ll be wearing bright silver cleats with blue Stars of David inside each Nike swoosh.

Edwin Díaz commissioned two different designs to wear for Puerto Rico: blue with a bronze trumpet across the Adidas stripes, and red with white and blue trumpets, a reference to the closer’s intro music.

Flashy footwear is the work of Stadium Custom Cleats, a company owned by Alex Katz, a pitcher for Israel at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics and at this year’s WBC.

“You can express yourself more,” Pederson said. “It’s pretty boring when it’s just plain Jane black-andwhite shoes. I like to spice my shoes up a little bit, add some extra flair.”

When Israel plays its Group D opener against Nicaragua at loanDepot park on Sunday, Katz’s cleats will feature the Mensch on a Bench mascot of Israel’s team, the Western Wall,

Haifa. The 28-year-old lefthander’s shoes even have multicolor reflective soles.

Others with the spiffy shoesincludeDanielBardof the U.S., Didi Gregorius and JuricksonProfaroftheNetherlands, and Robinson Canó of the Dominican Republic. In all, Katz’s company supplied 42 pairs of cleats to 36 players. A 27th-round pick by the Chicago White Sox in the 2015 amateur draft, Katz came up with the idea in 2016 when he was at Class A Kannapolis and was chastised by a minor league coordinator.

“The White Sox were kind of old school at the time,” Katz said. “I had black Nike cleats. The only thing white on them was a little bit on the toe and the Nike swoosh. And he said, ‘Hey Alex, like you have to Sharpie it out.’ So they were very strict.”

Peter Kurz, general manager of Israel’s national team, had reached out to Katz when the pitcher played for St. John’s from 2013-15, and Katz was part of Israel’s pitching staff during WBC qualifying in 2016. He used blue Nike spikes with some camouflage.