Baseball is a game of superstitions.
Walk-up music. Stances. Beards. The angle of your cap. All of it signifies something in a strange mystic unifier that keeps people in the right frame of mind. When Joey Loperfido, an Astros fan favorite during his time in the minors, made his way back to Houston in February after being dealt to Toronto in 2024, fans were on board with the 6’3″ slugger nicknamed Joey Cooks returning home.
Except, there was one small problem. In Loperfido’s absence, Shay Whitcomb had been handed Loperfido’s preferred No. 10 jersey. So a deal had to be made.
Unlike in other sports, where athletes routinely pay up to five figures to secure a preferred jersey, the two Astros teammates settled on something far more sentimental. Whitcomb, a California native, uploaded a video to his TikTok account of him unboxing a large item inside the Astros clubhouse as outfielder Taylor Trammell looks on. (We’ll ask about that Rangers bag in the back later.)
Other Astros are fully in on the moment too, documenting Whitcomb’s newest gift: a surfboard from Hayden Shapes. Not just any surfboard from Hayden Shapes, a Nova FutureFlex that retails around $850 before taxes.
To complete the transaction, Whitcomb had Loperfido autograph the board, of course, with the No. 10 on top.
When asked which number he would wear now that Loperfido has once again obtained his beloved No. 10? Whitcomb says he settled on No. 14.
During his time in Toronto, Loperfido did wear No. 10 for a spell before switching to No. 9 and then ending up back in his beloved jersey number. In baseball lore, there are a few notable No. 10s, none maybe more so than Hall of Famer Chipper Jones. In sports? No. 10 has its greatest prominence in soccer, as it’s traditionally given to the team’s best playmaker: see Pelé or Messi.
Back with the club that drafted him, it appears to be doing Loperfiedo some good in the young season.
Despite the Astros offense limping to two total runs versus the Angels so far in their opening series at Daikin Park, Loperfido is tied with Carlos Correa and Jeremy Peña with two hits apiece and has one of the Astros’ four extra-base hits on the young campaign.
As far as dropping $850 plus on a surfboard? Consider it one of the lighter-priced jersey exchanges between athletes. Ashton Jeanty, running back for the Las Vegas Raiders, reportedly paid between $60,000 and $90,000 for his No. 2 jersey, which had previously belonged to kicker Daniel Carson. That isn’t even the wildest figure. That honor belongs to former Oklahoma Sooner Gerald McCoy, who paid former Carolina Panthers teammate Kyle Love $250,000 for his beloved No. 93.
Even in Houston, the $850 is rather quaint. Stefon Diggs famously paid Jimmie Ward $100,000 to have No. 1 during his lone season in Houston. Ward wound up switching back to No. 20 after Diggs departed, but it goes to show you that athletes have some serious superstitions.
Especially when it comes to numbers.