Bryson Stott has worn plenty of unusual cleats over the years, from his many Phillies-themed kicks to last year’s Elmo-inspired Sesame Street footwear to honor his daughter, Braxtyn.
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That’s thanks to a partnership with Ryan Stevens and his company, NXT LVL Customs, which dates to 2023. And the latest cleats Stevens and NXT LVL Customs have unveiled for Stott honor an iconic baseball movie.
On Thursday, Stott will wear a custom pair of cleats for the Phillies’ Field of Dreams game (7:30 p.m., Netflix) against the Minnesota Twins in Dyersville, Iowa, where the 1989 Field of Dreams movie was filmed. The design features late Phillies legends Harry Kalas, Tug McGraw, Roy Halladay, Darren Daulton, Robin Roberts, and Richie Ashburn emerging from a cornfield, just like the old MLB stars did in the movie.
“Basically, you have these old-time legends come out of the cornfield, and I was like, ‘OK, well, how can we kind of spin that to make it like the Phillies legends from the past that have passed away?’” said Stevens, who lives in Downingtown.
“When I was looking up some of the shots from [Field of Dreams], I found this really cool shot. It was during the daytime, and you had the legends coming out of the cornfield. And something that stuck out of me right away was the catcher in the movie [John Kinsella]. The way he was positioned, it kind of looked like Darren Daulton. … Then I started thinking about some of the other legends. So I was like, ‘Well, how can I incorporate someone from every era or every era as far as I could go?’”
Stevens knew he “didn’t want to do a silhouette or didn’t want to do a cartoon version of it,” and after he got the stamp of approval from Stott to pursue his idea, he enlisted the help of Stephen Hatala, the owner of Stadium Locker, a sports art studio, to bring the design to life. The pair had worked together on four other cleat projects.
Hatala, who lives about an hour from Stevens in Bucks County, creates realism portraits and has only transferred portraits onto cleats four or five times, he estimates. The process began with measuring the cleats to account for uneven surfaces and a pencil-drawn sketch on white paper.
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“I only had five days to paint them. We were in definitely a time crunch, and I actually finished putting the last stroke on the cleats as [Stevens] was pulling up in the driveway to pick them up,” said Hatala, who grew up a Phillies fan. “I met Bryson once before. Didn’t do cleats for him. But this time he actually got to acknowledge my artwork, which is very important to me. I like getting recognition for things that I do, and especially the Field of Dreams [cleats]. It’s a once-in-a-year chance.”
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Stevens and Hatala delivered the cleats to Stott last week. What did he think of the design?
“I didn’t really tell him anything about it,” Stevens said. “This time, he was pretty taken aback. … We’ve been teasing it to him for a while, saying it was our best pair we’ve done, but, yeah, it was it was a really cool reaction.”
Added Hatala: “It just brought a little pleasure to myself. I’m like, ‘Oh wow, he’s really enjoying these cleats.’ I’d rather be in person seeing the reaction than seeing it on a screen.”
Stott won’t be the only Phillies player, past or present, with custom cleats from NXT LVL Customs on Thursday night. Phillies pitcher Orion Kerkering, outfielder Edmundo Sosa, and utility man Kody Clemens, who’s now with Minnesota, also will wear Stevens’ custom cleats.
Stevens says Clemens “wanted like the dark from the movie poster background, with the stadium lights peering down on the corner,” while Kerkering’s Adidas cleat has a “gradient dark background with the blues and the purples and the pinks, and we made the Adidas logos look like corn.”
Stevens is excited for his cleats to be on Thursday night’s national broadcast, while Hatala will attend the game in person.
“I think MLB does an incredible job with the movie, the field, the whole entire aura that comes with the Field of Dreams,” Hatala said. “The cornfield itself is a really cool graphic visual in the background, and also there’s nobody in the outfield. … I have never been there, but I’m expecting [MLB] to make it feel like a big-time high school game.”
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