There’s a version of Jazz Chisholm Jr. that exists only in the split second after contact — bat still rotating through the zone, ball already gone, hips already turning toward the dugout before his legs get the memo. It’s the version everyone knows: the neon cleats, the gold chain catching stadium lights, the Euro step at home plate that’s become as much a part of his identity as his batting average. But the version sitting across from Speedy Morman for Boardroom’s latest Cover Story is quieter than that — more reflective, but still unmistakably him.
Chisholm didn’t invent the idea of playing baseball with flair. But he’s become one of the sport’s most visible arguments for why the game needed it. Baseball has spent a century policing the distance between talent and personality, telling players when they could celebrate, how loud, for how long, in what shoes. Chisholm grew up inside that tension, in a league that once told him his cleats needed to be half black, back when tattooed necks and custom gear were treated less like self-expression and more like a violation. He wore what he wanted anyway. A year later, the rule was gone.
That instinct — to do it his way and let the results answer the questions — traces back further than his rookie season. It traces back to The Bahamas, to a grandmother who played professional softball and hauled her grandkids to the park every weekend, who called her shot on his first real home run before he’d even hit it, who is still, by his own account, the person most likely to tell him he should’ve run the bases like everybody else. It traces back to a 9-year-old facing down a coach throwing wooden-bat heat because “the kids in America are ready.” It traces back to a 17-year-old in Missoula, Montana, homering in his first professional at-bat and getting drilled by pitchers four times in the same game for the audacity of admiring it.
Now that same player is a two-time All-Star, an MLB The Show cover athlete, a Jordan Brand signee with an origin story involving Michael Jordan himself, and one of the more magnetic personalities New York has adopted as its own since he arrived in the Bronx. He’s also, increasingly, a businessman — someone who wants equity, not just endorsement checks, and who talks about wealth less in terms of what he can accumulate for himself and more in terms of how many people around him he can turn into millionaires.
What follows is a conversation about all of it: the grandmother who shaped him, the mindset required to stand in a batter’s box against 100-mile-an-hour pitching, the origin of a celebration that’s become a signature, a chance encounter with MJ that didn’t go the way a young Chisholm hoped, and a Yankees clubhouse he genuinely believes has the pieces to win it all. Through every answer, the same throughline holds: he did it his way, and he’s not slowing down to explain himself to anyone who needed him to do it differently.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
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Speedy Morman: What’s up, man? How are you?
Jazz Chisholm: I’m good, bro. Thanks for having me, bro.
No, we’re happy to have you. In doing my research, I found you might be the person who’s most proud of having spent time in Kansas.
Most proud? I think you got it backwards. I did have some time in Kansas, though. It just wasn’t my vibe. I’m East Coast, Southeast, Bahamas, Florida — those were my type of vibe.
Growing up, you got introduced to the sport you love by your grandmother, who played softball. Talk to us about that — how did you come into the game through her?
She played professional softball, and she’d take all her grandkids to the park on the weekends. We’d have practices, play games against each other, against family. She’d have her retired-league games, and everybody in The Bahamas would come out and cheer for her. She was a superstar, and that’s what I wanted to be. I wanted to be like her more than anything.
When was the moment you felt like you were actually going to the big leagues? Maybe a specific hit, a specific play?
I was 9 years old. It was tryouts for the national team, getting ready to travel to America for a tournament. My team was eight- and nine-year-olds, and we were scrimmaging against the twelve-year-olds — though we didn’t let them pitch to us, our coach did. He was bringing serious heat, telling us, “This is what you’ve got to face, because the kids in America are ready and you don’t see this all the time.” First at-bat, wooden bats for the first time ever, and I hit a home run. After that I was like, I’m the best ever. My grandma was watching practice and said, “I told you you were going to hit a home run.” We went crazy.
Do you remember your first career home run?
When I got to pro ball, I was only 17 — the youngest guy in the league by a good bit, most of the other guys were 21, 23, 24. I was in Missoula, Montana, middle of nowhere. On opening day they announced me — “our starting shortstop this year, seventeen years old” — and the crowd went crazy just hearing that. First at-bat, I hit a home run. After that, they threw at me four times that game. Every at-bat, they were trying to hit me, because I pimped the hell out of that home run. I still have the video.
As someone who’s never played baseball competitively, what does it actually feel like standing in the box, seeing a pitch you know you can hit?
Honest answer — the mindset is different than people think. You see it leave the pitcher’s hand and think, this is the one, and still swing and miss completely. You’ll put what feels like your best swing on it and be like, I don’t even know how I missed that.
How long after contact can you tell it’s gone?
Immediately. It’s a feeling — you just know. As soon as I hit it clean, I know it’s not staying in the park.
Last thing on home runs — what does it feel like to hit one, know it’s gone, and just stand there and watch it, instead of running right away?
Honestly, it feels exactly like it looks. You can go 30, 50 at-bats without hitting one — last year I was averaging a home run every sixteen at-bats, this year it’s closer to thirty — so when it finally happens, there’s relief in it. And if the moment matters, it’s like hitting a buzzer-beater in the NBA. Eighth inning, tie game, you go deep and put your team up — it feels like you just walked it off.
Baseball is one of the few sports that still feels very “purist” — fans can be protective of the game in a way that runs against how you present yourself. What’s it like being unapologetically yourself while some people at home are saying it’s “not pure”?
It’s cool, but if something doesn’t feel like me, I’m not doing it. I got here doing it my way — if I did it somebody else’s way, I wouldn’t be here. I’ve never gotten anywhere off someone else’s path, so why would I care what people have to say? I grew up watching guys who were unapologetically themselves — Robinson Canó dropping the bat, and especially Griffey. Griffey would tell a team straight up he never wanted to play for them. That’s the type of guy I am.
Talk to me about the origin of the Euro step. Where did that come from?
I’m a real hooper — played basketball my whole life. Me and my teammates were talking before a series against Jacob deGrom, who was the Cy Young winner at the time. I told them, watch — he’s going to throw a hundred, but I’m going to go deep off him and hit the Euro step at home plate. Everybody laughed, said it’d be crazy. First at-bat of my career against deGrom, I went deep and did exactly that. People lost it, and it just kept going from there.
I guess you could say — if you don’t like the Euro step, don’t give up the home run. Strike him out instead.
That’s the only thing I tell myself when someone does it to me. I’m not going to fight anybody for celebrating a win — baseball’s hard. You never know when a home run is going to be your last, so you might as well Euro step. And I take every single one of them in. I celebrate the hell out of them.
You’re signed to Jordan Brand now, and I’ve heard a great story about meeting Michael Jordan as a kid.
My stepdad — my first coach — took me to Jordan’s celebrity softball game. Jordan was sneaking out the back, and I was a nosy kid who spotted him. I yelled, “Jordan, Jordan, can I get your autograph?” He turned around and said, “Nah — maybe he’ll want your autograph one day,” and just kept walking. Didn’t even look back.
Were you sad in the moment?
A little, but I never forgot it. It motivated me to go get a Jordan contract, honestly. Now that I’m signed with Jordan, that signature’s already there — he helped me out a little.
When are you going to meet him for the first time?
Haven’t planned it yet. I’ve got to get to that level first. If I don’t feel like I’m at Michael Jordan level, I’m not trying to meet Michael Jordan yet. Let me win a ring first, or maybe another Silver Slugger — once I’ve got that, I’ll be ready to go talk to Jordan.
Who are you listening to these days?
Don Toliver, Drake. Me and Boogie are basically brothers so I’m always on his music too.
What’s the actual process for getting a walk-up song approved?
They ask you at the start of the year what you want. For me, I’ll come home from a road trip, go into my home studio, record something, and if I really like it, I’ll say, put this in tomorrow. I don’t even mix or master it — raw files, straight in. I send it to our team’s PR director, she sends it upstairs, and I’ll even tell them exactly which twenty seconds I want played.
You were on the cover of MLB The Show. What did it feel like getting that call?
One of the craziest moments of my life. My agent called near the end of the season — a season where I made my first All-Star team but also got hurt two months in and missed a hundred games. He told me I was getting the cover. Getting that news at the end of a rough year was honestly the one bright spot.
You’ve taken a different approach than most athletes — going into equity and ownership instead of just endorsement money. What’s that side of it been like?
I like having real input into what I’m part of. If I’m putting my name on something, I don’t want to just show up, take a check, and leave. I want equity, because without it I’ve got no real say — I’m just standing there modeling a product.
Any specific business goals?
I used to say I wanted to be a billionaire, but honestly I think I want to make more millionaires. I want to make a lot of my people millionaires — that’s the Jay-Z model, what he did creating other billionaires. I don’t want to be the only rich person in the room. I want all of us up.
What are some of the things that you look for in a new deal? What are some of those things that you want besides a big bag?
I’m going to be real with you. I don’t even know, bro. I’ve never been in that position to even… And I haven’t been in it yet. So to be there to tell you, dang, I know what I’m looking for in free agency. Honestly, right now, all I’m trying to do is go win that World Series. And then after that, I’ll probably think about it. But right now, it’s just like I love New York, especially that I’m playing here right now. I would never want to leave. You know what I mean? So to say that I’m out here looking to go to another team or looking for a new contract in a different way, it’s not really [like that].
Looking at this Yankees clubhouse, does a ring feel realistic to you? Do you have the pieces?
I think we do. We’ve got two Cy Young winners, a guy on the team closing in on his first one, and four MVPs on the roster — most teams don’t even have one. It’s hard to say you don’t have the pieces when you’ve got that much talent in one room. We just need everybody healthy at the right time. I’m never going to say the team I’m on is going to lose — that mindset doesn’t make sense to me.
When this is all said and done, what do you want your legacy to look like?
I want it to say this was the guy who did it every way there is — on the field, off the field, with his people, and even with the people who didn’t like him. He did it his way, and he never faltered, no matter who loved him or hated him.
That’s fire — Euro-stepping the whole way there.
The whole way. Can’t even block it.
Jazz, congrats, man. Keep going, keep building — and congrats on being a Boardroom cover star.
I appreciate you, bro.
Interviewer – Speedy Morman
Art Director – Michelle Lukianovich
DP – Craig Newton
Camera Op – Audrey Blackmore
Camera Op, Video Editor – Matt Strickland
Audio Technician – Matthew Curry
VP, General Manager – Paul Beckles
VP, Content – Damien Scott
VP, Revenue & Brand Partnerships – Abigale Smith
VP, Partnership Strategy & Marketing – Bernadette Doykos
VP, Social Media – Yoni Mernick
VP, Audience Development – Jonathan Wiener
Sr. Director, Marketing & Content Operations – Stephanie Talmadge
Sr. Manager, Content Operations – Griffin Adams
Sr. Manager, Social Media – Tate Jordan
CMO – Sarah Flynn
Co-Founders – Rich Kleiman & Kevin Durant
Photographer – David Cabrera
Photo Assistant – Chris Perez
Stylist – Mervat Elsherbiny
Groomer – Jomo Lopez
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