Valley Stream 14-year-old paints custom cleats for players on Yankees, Mets
On April 1, Yankees second baseman Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s colorful customized cleats caught the eye of YES Network announcer Michael Kay during a second-inning at-bat.
Chisholm’s cleats were an homage to the Japanese anime series “One Piece,” a particular favorite of Chisholm’s, especially the character Monkey D. Luffy.
The audio of Kay explaining the series to Paul O’Neill is pretty funny.
But what about the shoes? The artwork was painted by Evan Taveras, a 14-year-old from Valley Stream who goes by the name “EvanTheArtist” on Instagram and is no stranger to painting cleats for major leaguers.
Taveras is a huge Mets fan from what his mother, Melissa, calls “a big Mets family.” Last year, he painted cleats for Pete Alonso and Jose Iglesias.
According to his mother, Taveras was hired by Major League Baseball to paint cleats for All-Star Game events last season, and then to do one for a Mets player and a Yankees player. Evan chose Alonso and Chisholm, and then Chisholm came back and asked for Evan to paint more cleats for him this season..
“He hit me up on Instagram,” Chisholm told Newsday recently. “I was like, ‘You know what? I'm going to paint a couple of my shoes. I need some anime stuff going.’ He did such a good job. Every year I'm going let him do three cleats that I can wear. He's been doing such a great job that I just hit him up every now and then and say, ‘Hey, you want to make some shoes?’ And like, let's get to work.”
Chisholm wore his custom-painted cleats in the postseason last year as the Yankees made it to the World Series.
“He's a great kid, man,” Chisholm said. “Honestly, when I first saw him, I thought he was 18 years old. He's a big kid. I was like, ‘Hey, man, you're super talented.’ He's super nice, a super smart kid and really down to earth, really good kid to talk to and get to know.”
But . . . he’s a Mets fan.
“That’s OK,” Chisholm said. “He does his thing.”
Said Taveras: “It doesn’t matter. I can be professional. I’m a Mets fan, but I love to do it for other teams.”
But there’s no doubt he gets a special kick out of painting kicks for Mets players.
Tavares painted Polar Bear-themed cleats for Alonso and handed them to him during batting practice on Sept. 19 at Citi Field last season. Alonso wore them and homered in his first at-bat during the club’s September to remember.
“He just brought an amazing pair of shoes, or an amazing pair of cleats, to BP,” Alonso said earlier this week at Citi Field. “He's like, ‘I painted these for you.’ I’m like, ‘OK, sick, yeah.’ And I wore them and then I think I remember hitting a homer that day. I'm happy to do it. It's good advertising for him. That shows a lot of initiative and a lot of guts just to do that. His artwork -- super talented. The cleats are really, really dope.
“I can't draw. I'm not very artistic. I can't play music. I'm very lacking in that department. That just shows a lot of initiative and passion on his part. So that's really awesome.”
Pete Alonso wearing the cleats on Sept. 19, 2024. Credit: Noah K. Murray; Getty Images
And the Iglesias story is straight out of the Mets’ magical second half of the 2024 season. The veteran infielder, a singer who goes by the name “Candelita,” was scheduled to perform his song “OMG” at an event at the All-Star Game in Arlington, Texas.
It was the third straight year Taveras attended the All-Star Game, and he wanted to paint “OMG”-themed cleats for Iglesias. It all happened real fast.
“I met him in Arlington,” Evan said. “He wanted me to paint his pair of shoes last minute that he was going to wear during his mini concert. So I met up with him at the hotel, and I painted his shoes in the lobby, and then I gave them to him and he wore them during that mini concert.”
Iglesias, now with the Padres, said last week at Yankee Stadium: “I said, ‘All right, let's make it happen. And then we met in the lobby, and then he's painting it right in the lobby before the show in the All-Star Game. Very talented.”
Evan Taveras, of Valley Stream, paints custom cleats for Yankees player Jazz Chisholm Jr., at his home on Wednesday. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
How did this all begin?
“In the beginning of the pandemic, I was, like, really bored,” Taveras said. “There's nothing to do. I was just always inside and I was on YouTube and I came across this guy [Marko Terzo]. He does art, too. He paints shoes. I wanted to also paint shoes.
"I asked my mom if I could get a pair and get some markers so I could paint. She said yes. And then I painted them for my best friend -- first pair -- and posted them on my Instagram. And then it just blew up and a bunch of people started asking for a pair.”
Evan was 9.
Did he ever think it would get to this point?
"Absolutely not," he said. "I thought that I was just going to paint that pair for my friend. That I was just a regular kid painting shoes. It was super cool to see my page views grow."
Now, the budding artist and entrepreneur has more than 17,000 followers and his mother is his “momager” (for manager).
This weekend, Taveras is going to present Chisholm with two new pairs of painted cleats at the Subway Series at Yankee Stadium.
Chisholm, who is out with an oblique injury, plans to auction them off for his foundation, which is having its annual fashion show and fundraiser, called “Tunnel Fits & Kicks,” on Monday.
Taveras also uses his talent for charitable work, including annual fundraisers in honor of his 13-year-old brother Max, who has cerebral palsy.
Along with all that, Taveras is a baseball player, going to practice after school before settling down to paint from 8 p.m. to about 11, “or whenever my parents want me to go to sleep,” as he put it.
“It’s like a wind-down time for him,” Melissa said. “He's not doing all the running around from the whole day, playing sports, doing this and that, and running back and forth. So when he's sitting at his table, he sets his mood, puts his little light on, and closes the door. He just puts his music on or watches the game.”
When Taveras, a ninth-grader at Valley Stream Memorial Junior High School, is on the baseball field, he wears cleats he painted.
“Everyone on my team wants a pair,” he said.
No kidding.
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
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