Red Sox slugger of the future Triston Casas is nailing being Triston Casas

The takeaway from the interview is clear: he doesn’t seem to give a damn what anybody else thinks…

“I think you can go about things however you want, you can wear whatever you want,” Casas said in the interview. “You’ve gotta watch what you say, but in terms of wearing and going out there with your own style, colors, I think I’m all for it.”

It’s admittedly a different type of video than anything I’ve ever seen the Red Sox post before. At a time when social media trends are more negative than not (and that’s a dramatic understatement), Casas is certainly taking a risk by opening himself up and giving Red Sox fans a window into his mind and soul — which takes a lot of self-confidence, and I commend that.

“I have a lot of love for everybody in the city of Boston and everybody around, and I feel like if there’s some way I can tie the nail polish into something positive, I want to,” Casas said.

Of course, Casas is far from naive. He sees things, he hears things — and yes, some negative, but also some positive.

“Not that everybody sees it as negative, but I get certain looks about it and people say certain things about it,” he said. “You know, there’s a stereotype about it and people call me this and that and say I’m this and that, but it’s so superficial. …  At the end of the day, this is just my video game character. … It’s just whatever character I want to be for that day.” 

As for the story behind why Casas paints his nails — in the video and X/Twitter posts from the Red Sox, Casas holds up his right hand to show off the nails on three of his fingers painted green — he says it all began as a way to spend time with his mother Christine, who passed away when he was 9 years old. Every “two or three weeks” the two would get together as his mom got her nails done to “bond” and “talk about whatever, put our phones down for a little bit and catch up.”

“And then one day, the lady that was doing my nails asked me if I wanted a color,” Casas said with a laugh. 

His mom wasn’t the only member of the family who was receptive to the idea. 

Casas added: “When I came home, my dad when he saw me walk in he looked at my feet and was like ‘What is that? Why do you have that on your feet?’ And I was like ‘What do you mean?’ He’s like ‘the nail polish, what is that?’ And I just said ‘oh, I thought it was funny. I went with mom and we went to go get it done. And he’s like ‘no, no, no, I’m not talking about the color or the polish.’ He’s like ‘why don’t you have it on your hands too?’”

The confidence Casas now carries himself with is likely a direct result of the support of his parents — and in particular, his father Jose’s affirmation.

“Him instilling that confidence into me made me feel good,” Casas said. “If I come home and my dad is like ‘what are you doing? Like ‘take that off your hands, you don’t do that’ … he’s very lighthearted himself. He told me, he admitted that he used to do it himself too. So that made me feel good when he didn’t make a big deal about it.”

Entering one spring training, his dad even asked him “‘what are you going to do for the season? Are you going to do red, are you going to do blue?’ I was like ‘I wasn’t going to play with anything.’”

Casas called himself “a baseball historian” who is “very big on respecting the game and the aesthetic it’s supposed to be played with.” But his dad encouraged him to break the mold, saying “nah, the game’s changed and people, they don’t care about that kind of stuff anymore. If you don’t do it, somebody else is gonna do it. Why not have it be you?”

It’s that spirit that Casas is carrying into what could be his first major breakout season. For a Red Sox team that’s struggling for marketability — despite Rafael Devers’ well-earned stardom, a language barrier likely plays a role in preventing him from connecting personally with English-speaking Bostonians and baseball fans  —  Casas’ willingness to embrace the spotlight should be welcomed. 

“We’re just in the entertainment business at the end of the day,” he said. "I think that’s what the game needs — some individuality.”

Some athletes claim they don’t pay attention to the outside noise, but Casas definitely isn’t one of them…

“I see everything, honestly,” he said. “I go on the posts and I look at the comments, and I go on Twitter and I look myself up. I love seeing what people say about me, good, bad. When I’m doing great, like it’s cool, but when I’m doing bad that’s when I like to see those things. I’m like, you have no idea, you have no idea.” 

Despite its past reputation, Boston is a diverse city — and one that embraces a winner above all else. Casas seems to realize that, and he insists his love for the limelight won’t detract from his job and mission on the field. 

“It doesn’t change anything about me, doesn’t change anything about the person that I am or what I bring to the table, the examples I set, the accountability I hold for myself,” Casas said. “… (I’ve) never played any other sport, only baseball. It’s the only one that I liked.”

Casas has a ways to go to reach star status, but these Red Sox have certainly put themselves in a position where they’re counting on him to deliver like one. And if he does that in a big way, well… brace yourselves, Boston. You could be looking at one of the next faces of baseball. And he isn’t like any of the others who have come before him. 

And he’s OK with that.