Nationals players poke fun at manager Blake Butera with hilarious T-shirts

Before the pomp and circumstance of the Nationals’ home opener Friday, the clubhouse was nearly empty around 9:10 a.m.

Everything in the room looked familiar, except for a T-shirt on starting pitcher Foster Griffin’s chair. It wasn’t team-branded attire. On the back of the shirt was a quote from manager Blake Butera. A quick glance around the room revealed shirts on other chairs.

Slowly, players began to walk through the clubhouse wearing the T-shirts. Laughs commenced. The laughs grew louder with each passing player.

The front of the shirt displayed a cartoon version of Butera wearing sunglasses sitting in a laundry cart and holding a beer. The top read “Blake Butera” in cartoonish lettering and at the bottom, just below a row of cans of beer and shaving cream, were the words “All Kinds of Stuff.”

After Friday’s loss, Butera blushed when asked about the shirts.

“I rolled my eyes. I’m not a big fan of T-shirts or anything with my face or name of them,” he said as he laughed.

Following Butera’s first managerial win in the big leagues, a 10-4 victory over the Chicago Cubs on March 26, the Nationals celebrated by giving him a beer shower in the visiting clubhouse at Wrigley Field.

After the game, Butera said: “I got crushed. ... They grabbed me and, next thing you know, there was a lot of liquids all over me in the shower. All kinds of stuff. Shaving cream, beer, you name it.”

The origin of the shirts is unclear. But for Butera, a first-time manager, the shirts were the first public example of his players poking fun at their 33-year-old leader.

They wore the shirts during pregame warmups and batting practice. And perhaps they’ll keep wearing them as the season progresses.

“Would rather it just be about the players, but if they have fun with it and they can laugh about it, all for it,” Butera said. “At the end of the day, I just want it to be about them.”

This article has been updated.