Royals pitcher Cole Ragans reveals start-day ritual — and he’s inspired a teammate
His secret is out.
Royals starting pitcher Cole Ragans loves a nice-lookin’ pair of boots.
He seemed stunned when sportscaster Kay Adams, host of the “Up and Adams Show,” asked him what boots he planned to wear with his game-day fit when the St. Louis Cardinals come to town Friday for three games.
He threw his head back and laughed.
“How do you know about this? Oh man,” he said in the interview posted Tuesday.
“Tell me about the boots, Cole,” Adams teased.
He hemmed and hawed and finally said: “Probably, I have some like cherry alligator ones that I wear … it’s either those or I have a pair of tan pythons. Depends on what pair of pants I wear.”
“Got it. So there’s like pant vibes, too,” Adams said. “I heard — so everyone understands — I heard a rumor … you wear amazing boots on start days. You even inspired another teammate to wear fancy boots on your start days.
“Why do you wear the boots and how did this thing start?”
Turns out, it’s more a fashion thing than superstition for the 27-year-old Florida native.
(Florida. Alligator boots. Makes sense now.)
“I don’t know how it like came about,” Ragans said. “I’ve always kinda liked boots and then the older I’ve gotten I’ve started adding to my collection of boots and getting a little bit more exotic and stuff like that.
“It just turned into start day. I like to dress a little nicer and I have a few pair of boots that I wear.”
(Um, is he using “Boots on the Ground” for his warm-up song?)
He said he has inspired teammate Vinnie Pasquantino to buy a pair and start wearing jeans and boots to The K.
“I’ve gotten a few of the guys to buy a pair of boots. There’s a couple of guys that had already worn ... they have quite a few pairs and they wear them as well.”
Adams deemed it “diabolical” that he would wear red boots when they play the Cardinals, whose primary team color is cardinal red — Pantone PMS 200 C to be precise.
“Well it’s like a dark cherry, it’s not like a super red …” Ragans tried to insist.
“I don’t care. I love that about you,” Adams said.
Then she threw out a suggestion for Royals fans.
“We need, on start days for Cole, can we start wearing boots and jeans everybody? Would you like that or would you say whoa, whoa, whoa,” she asked him.
“I think that would be actually pretty cool if everybody started wearing boots and jeans,” he said. “That’d be funny.”
Royals fans, do your thing.
This story was originally published May 13, 2025 at 2:02 PM.
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