Before we begin looking ahead to 2027, OTM is looking back at 2026, highlighting some of the biggest, strangest, and most memorable moments that defined a memorable season. Today, we look back at a moment that is already defining the career of a young star.<\/p>\n
On August 31, 2026, Payton Tolle hugged a grown man. In the midst of a still-gestating career, the hug is already what defines Tolle as both a ballplayer and a man. It even broke containment and made it onto The Today Show.<\/p>\n
Hugs aren\u2019t anything new in baseball. Hell, homoeroticism in general isn\u2019t anything new in baseball, which, ironically, is frequently in the case in subcultures that are otherwise outwardly homophobic.<\/a> But this hug was different. It happened on the field. It happened between two opponents who had never in their lives spoken to each other. It happened as part of the game play itself, with the hug doubling as a tag-out. And in a sport where being a red-ass is point of pride, it happened with a big, goofy smile.<\/p>\n \u201cThe hug thing, I can go back to high school,\u201d Tolle later said.<\/a> \u201cI used to hug the opposing coach in high school basketball whenever we would do the high-five lines\u2026 I was like, \u2018No, I\u2019m gonna make this uncomfortable. I\u2019m gonna give him a nice hug.\u2019 Most guys started to embrace it, but there were some that were like, \u2018No, no, no.\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018I\u2019m getting a hug here, man. I\u2019m not running away from you until I get this.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Tolle\u2019s ability to blow a fastball by just about anyone in the game is what\u2019s going to make him a star. But his ability to embrace what so many other athletes find uncomfortable is what\u2019s going to make him beloved.<\/p>\n Playing baseball in Boston is not like playing baseball anywhere else. It is genuinely important for Red Sox players \u2014 and for Red Sox stars in particular \u2014 to be comfortable with fame, if not to actively court it. Not every player is. When David Wells came to Boston for two years in the twilight of his career, he seemed like a good fit for the city. He was an established star with a big personality and a no-fucks-given attitude, and he\u2019d already thrived in Yankees Universe, which presents its own kind of cauldron in the media capital of the world.<\/p>\n But Wells, as it turned out, hated his time in Boston, complaining that it was impossible for him to go anywhere without being asked to pose for a picture. In New York, even a personality as big as his was granted the blessing of anonymity outside the ballpark. He was just another celebrity in a city filled with them, a city that was home to literally millions of people who didn\u2019t even know what Derek Jeter looked like, let alone David Wells.<\/p>\n It\u2019s different in Boston. If you play for the Red Sox, you always play for the Red Sox, even as you go to the hardware store or try to grab a beer at the bar. You are one of the 26 most important people in the city, whether you asked to be or not. Players like Nomar, Mo Vaughn, and David Price struggled to handle this; David Ortiz, Pedro, and Dustin Pedroia thrived on it.<\/p>\n Payton Tolle is going to thrive on it. We already know this. This isn\u2019t just because Payton Tolle is comfortable with fame; it\u2019s because Payton Tolle is comfortable being Payton Tolle. He talks openly and genuinely about his emotions, about his faith, about the heart-breaking, life-defining death of his mother. He is not afraid to cry on camera, he\u2019s not afraid to look vulnerable, he\u2019s not afraid to subtly imply that a rival player is an overly intense asshole<\/a> (though, somehow, he manages to do it entirely without judgement).<\/p>\n Tolle doesn\u2019t seek the spotlight the way that others like Curt Schilling or Kevin Millar did. But he also doesn\u2019t hide from it. And, more importantly, he doesn\u2019t let it change him. That rare strength of personality is going to prove incredibly valuable as he grows into his inevitable role as Boston\u2019s favorite son.<\/p>\n To be perfectly if not prematurely frank, I am already a little bit worried about Roman Anthony\u2019s ability to handle the Boston spotlight. Anthony is already bristling and what he perceives to be unfair criticism over how he handled his injury this year. He has already pushed back against whispers that his nightlife is getting in the way of his baseball. I agree with him in both respects. Anthony has been unfairly burdened with the weight of expectations, and then unfairly criticized when his body prevented him from immediately meeting those expectations. But whether the criticism that is so often leveled at Red Sox stars is unfair or not is, unfortunately, immaterial for Anthony and Tolle. It is there and they need to accept that it\u2019s there in order to thrive.<\/p>\n At this incredibly early stage of Anthony\u2019s career, I am by no means passing judgment on whether he is going to be able to do that. But it is obvious that he didn\u2019t have much fun this year. By the end of the season he looked like a man who was trying to shut out the rest of the world. He looked like a man who wanted to go home. He looked like a man who needed a hug.<\/p>\n Luckily, he knows where to find one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before we begin looking ahead to 2027, OTM is looking back at 2026, highlighting some of the biggest,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":882205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,198114,99],"class_list":["post-882204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-red-sox-commentary","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/882205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}