What’s going on with the funky neckwear? Used to be that millionaire athletes’ metal of choice on the field of play was gold or silver worn in Mr. T-sized chains. Now it’s titanium.
Tune in any major league baseball game on TV and you’re likely to see at least one player on the field sporting an unusual, colourful cloth/titanium necklace manufactured using a unique process that purportedly has energy-enabling properties. It’s called Phiten and is reputed by its Japanese-based manufacturers to have the power to regulate and control the flow of energy throughout your body.
The Jays clubhouse has a strong list of fans trusting and believing in the company’s self-proclaimed qualities of energy and health-giving. Left-hander Brett Cecil began his major league career in May 2009 and has never walked to the mound without his Phiten.
“Does it help? I don’t know because I never take it off,” Cecil shrugged.
Another member of the Jays’ talented young rotation, Shaun Marcum, started out as a Phiten man but has switched to a competitor. Perhaps it’s the fact he had Tommy John surgery on his right elbow and missed a full season that caused him to defect. Marcum still believes in the therapeutic powers of the necklace, but has given his neck to a competitor. He doesn’t blame Phiten for his elbow woes, but after the setback was convinced by teammate Ricky Romero to cross over.
“I wear everything,” Marcum explained, flashing his matching bracelets. “I’ve got this Power Balance stuff that Ricky gave me and this EFX is kind of the same deal, just a different company. I wore Phiten in 2005 and then I switched over to this stuff this year.
“I actually do think they do things. There’s nights where I’ll be a little stiff and I’ll wake up the next morning and feel a little looser . . . nights I don’t sleep with them on, I’ll wake up a little stiff or a little sore. Baseball players, we’ll do anything to stay healthy. I think they do work. I’ve never gone without wearing them for a season, so it’s tough to say.”
Other prominent Phiten wearers include Jim Thome, Clay Buchholz, Jon Lester, Tim Lincecum and Justin Verlander; PGA Tour players Sergio Garcia and Ernie Els; Martina Hingis and Lleyton Hewitt from tennis; and runner Paula Radcliffe.
“We launched the necklace in 2001 in Japan,” Phiten’s marketing manager Joe Furuhata explained. “It became famous in 2002 with World Cup soccer. After that, there is an annual baseball tournament in Japan and when the U.S. team visited in 2002, they saw all the Japanese players wearing them and brought it back to America.”
The Red Sox were the first team to wear the Phiten en masse back in 2003. After the Sox broke the curse and won the World Series in 2004 against the Cardinals, the look and the Phiten took off.
The titanium-based necklace sits stylishly above the uniform collar, with no apparent purpose other than decoration. There is no question, though, that it continues as a growing phenomenon. The Phiten is sold online for $25 to $50.
Baseball players always seem to buy into these types of things.
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