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Travis Kelce's Lack of Guardians Gear at ALCS Game Had People Mad

Kelce and Swift attended Game 1 in the Bronx.

Kyle Koster

Kelce and Swift attended Game 1 of the American League Championship Series in New York.
Kelce and Swift attended Game 1 of the American League Championship Series in New York. / Vincent Carchietta-Imagn Images
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Travis Kelce and Taylor Swift were among the 47,264 fans in the Bronx on Monday night for Game 1 of the ALCS between the Cleveland Guardians and New York Yankees. The power couple's plans became public a few hours before first pitch and things went about as expected, which is to say Major League Baseball and TBS alike tried to attach themselves to that sweet, sweet pop culture capital.

The viewing public was saved from copious shots of their luxury box as the broadcast made sure the main characters of the night were on the diamond. But we do know that the two shared a high-five and reacted quite humanly to Juan Soto's home run, which was part of a 5-2 Yankees win.

All in all, pretty normal stuff. But because it's the internet, some people used Kelce's sartorial choices against him and wondered why he wasn't actively repping his hometown team.

There are plenty of other examples of this critique but you get the picture. Kelce has thrown out a first pitch at a Guardians game supported the team in the past. But anyone who has deeply studied the text of Travis Kelce, Baseball Fan couldn't have been entirely surprised that he pulled a Rob Lowe and sported neutral gear. This piece by Jordan Shusterman reveals that the high-profile tight end has, at the very least, been Yankees-curious through the years.

Look, the frustration is understandable. The postseason baseball discourse has been trying for fans of Midwestern teams as everyone seems to be openly rooting for a Los Angeles Dodgers-New York Yankees World Series. Kelce is a megawatt celebrity and could have stood up for the heartland and it would have gone a long way until people forgot about it the next morning. Plus, Game 1 didn't really go well for Cleveland.

The most charitable way to view this, though, is that Swift and Kelce simply love ball. Watching a superstar like Soto send a ball into space through the cool October sky is an objectively cool thing to watch and they had a reaction to watching that. It happens.

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Kyle Koster
KYLE KOSTER

Kyle Koster is an assistant managing editor at Sports Illustrated covering the intersection of sports and media. He was formerly the editor in chief of The Big Lead, where he worked from 2011 to '24. Koster also did turns at the Chicago Sun-Times, where he created the Sports Pros(e) blog, and at Woven Digital.

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