There’s apparently more than meets the eye when it comes to Giancarlo Stanton… At least when he’s wearing his Miami Marlins uniform.
The 23-year-old half-Puerto Rican professional baseball player, who was named Topps All-Star Rookie Outfielder in 2010 and a National League All-Star in 2012, shows off his oh-so-toned cuerpo in ESPN‘s fifth annual “The Body Issue.”
Stanton, an MLB Home Run Derby pick, is one of more than a dozen athletes appearing completamente desnudos in the sports magazine’s popular issue, which aims to admire the vast potential of the human form and appreciate “the bodies we want.”
“Baseball — it’s a grind, man,” says Stanton. “With all the travel, you have to schedule your workouts. But I have cheat days. If I’m going to cheat, I’m going to cheat. It’s no, ‘Oh, I’ll have one bite.’ I’m eating the whole thing and you order on your own.”
For his wet-and-wild shoot, the Marlins outfielder stripped down to his birthday suit and was coated with gold paint before being splashed with water in his infield area.
But Stanton isn’t the only Hispanic athlete featured in ESPN’s “The Body Issue.”
Daila Ojeda appears opposite her boyfriend Chris Sharma in a dramatic series of rock images.
The 32-year-old Spanish rock climber says, “through climbing, you can learn important things like motivation, personal growth, fear. The important thing for me is trying to force my own limits. I try what I want to try; I don’t think about the success,” says Ojeda.
Meanwhile, Marlen Esparza hits the ring in her birthday suit and a pair of boxing gloves.
The 23-year-old Mexican American boxer, who earned a bronze medal at the 2012 Olympic Games, is photographed in mid-action, as she takes jabs at a punching bag.
“I imagine the fight over and over,” says Esparza. “I imagine my opponent, I imagine what she’s throwing, what I’m going to throw back. Sometimes I win the fight, sometimes I lose. I just imagine every scenario – that way when I get in the ring it’s not as intimidating, it’s like I’ve already done it.”
Stanton, Ojeda and Esparza follow in the naked footsteps of Carlos Bocanegra, Maria Gabeira and Danell Leyva, who were featured in last year’s issue.
