Francisco Lindor is the King of Queens

Francisco Lindor moves differently from other baseball players.

Lindor is as comfortable on Madison Avenue as one of Major League Baseball's most bankable pitchmen as he is rocking an elite fit on Fifth Avenue. He has the ability to relate to the diverse, working-class fans of Queens as he drives across the bridge to Citi Field, where he's made his home as one of the sport's most beloved superstars, as the heart and soul of the New York Mets.

Lindor arrived in New York after the 2020 season following six years in Cleveland, acquired by the Mets in the first major move under new team owner Steve Cohen, who set out to remake his beloved team into a baseball superpower after purchasing the team months earlier for $2.4 billion. He then signed Lindor to a 10-year, $341 million contract extension, then a team record, to make him the team’s heart and soul for the next decade.

As he’s transitioned to veteran status, the 31-year-old, four-time MLB All-Star has begun to build his interests off the diamond.

“Before it was just baseball, baseball, baseball.”

He finds inspiration in entertainers and athletes like LeBron James, Kevin Hart and Magic Johnson, who came from very little and were able to expand into different areas beyond their professions. Lindor wears the crown of baseball’s most fashionable player, and is as comfortable at Paris Fashion Week as he is in the batter’s box. Frankie might be the only player with a personal style coach, Allen Oniya, who praised his mix of old and new styles while not being afraid to repeat outfits if it’s a look he loves. Most recently, he’s merged fashion and function in his new signature sneaker and apparel lines with New Balance, where he joins Shohei Ohtani as the only MLB stars with such an honor.

When you see or talk to Lindor, you observe the passion, energy, and soul emanating from every fiber of his being. He exuded a sense of calm excitement as he arrived on a rainy, dark Saturday morning at Hell’s Kitchen’s Spyscape, bringing a warm, charismatic, engaging vibe, thoughtfully and genuinely greeting everyone involved in the cover shoot in a low-maintenance, approachable way.

It that same vibe as he brings to Citi Field, getting 40,000 strong to their feet, singing The Temptations’ “My Girl." But behind his cheerful demeanor is a driven competitor who told us the pitcher he most wants to hit a home run off of is the next one he faces.

“Nobody cares what I did last year,” he defiantly proclaimed.

Earlier this month, Lindor arrived at Hell’s Kitchen’s Spyscape in sophisticated style, sporting an Aime Leon Dore Jacket and travel slippers, and Dries Van Noten trousers to complement his lean, chiseled frame. As he received a quick shape-up before sitting down with Boardroom co-founder and CEO Rich Kleiman for our April cover story, Lindor bragged about Puerto Rico’s rich demographic mix of Spaniards, Tainos, and Africans, and historic Puerto Rican icons like Roberto Clemente and Sonia Sotomayor.

On set, Lindor exudes the suave aura of the marketable, fashionable family man no one could dare dislike, deftly displaying the unquestionable it factor off the field to go with his otherworldly skill-set on the diamond.

This interview has been edited for length & clarity

New Year, New Team

Rich Kleiman: Let's talk about New York right now. I was at Opening Day, and I could feel the excitement in the stadium. It was almost like a continuation of October. Going into this season, do you feel this extra pressure or a sense that the expectations have risen after the Mets’ performance last year?

Francisco Lindor: Every time you’re in New York, there's always pressure. I love it. I think pressure is a great opportunity to create something special. Coming into this year, the pressure is that we got to win, but that was the same thing in 2021, 2022, ‘23, ‘24, now 25. It's just, we got to get it done. We are all working towards that. I feel like the city deserves it, the organization deserves it, and the players deserve it as well, but nothing's going to be given.

Even if we win this year, there’s still pressure. The Dodgers won last year, they still got pressure. Every time you get put in a place to create something special, there's always going to be pressure.

RK: When a superstar like Juan Soto joins your lineup, there’s a change in dynamic or chemistry you have to account for, even when he’s joining an already successful team. Has there been an adjustment for you, and how has that dynamic been early on as a leader of the team?

FL: For a guy like Soto, it's all about making him feel comfortable, like this is also his team. He's going to be here for a very long time, so you want him to feel that he's part of everything we're trying to accomplish.

[We have the same] ultimate goal, which is winning, and he's been fantastic. He's the guy that has been the same person from day one. I appreciate the way he has gone about it. I appreciate that he's not trying to do anything extra, and he had one year already in New York; he understands how this is. But you just have to make him feel like this is his home. This truly is his house. He is going to be here for a very long time.

The Making of a Mets Town

RK: Outside of one or two years, New York has been a Yankee town. During the playoffs last year, I was really loud to anyone that would listen to me that I was feeling a shift. When a team's in the playoffs in New York in general, that becomes the talk of the town, but when the environment becomes almost like a music festival, everyone wants to go.

Did you feel that people were talking about you guys now as much, if not more, than they were talking about your crosstown rivals?

FL: Citi Field is becoming the place to be. You have certain places around the league that there's a game, but it's more of an event, almost like a basketball game; it feels like something special is happening, and that's kind of how it feels at Citi Field right now. Maybe that's why when you're experiencing and feeling the shift, maybe that's what you are feeling. If five things are happening in NYC one night, which one are you going to pick? I’m going to go to Citi Field.

RK: I was at all the home games in the playoffs last year. It was pretty insane. When you come up to bat, you walk up to “My Girl” and have the entire crowd singing behind you. What was that playoff run for you in terms of moments in your life to see how electric the crowd became?

FL: It was sick, it was crazy.

When you put on a walkup song, most of the guys put it on because they're vibing to the song and they want the fans to engage with it. When the fans get behind it and you start winning, it feels good.

Last year during the playoffs, we had this fantastic aura and true home-field advantage. The fans would bring it. It was just like, we are at home, we're not going to lose. And [so far this season], I feel that way as well. You have 40,000 people pulling in one direction, and the players pulling in the same direction.

RK: I think a lot of the momentum has also aligned with new ownership. I've represented Kevin for almost his entire career, and I know the difference between having a great owner and a good owner. You can feel it because there's no stone unturned. Changes to an in-game experience, to the accommodations, to the commitment to spending on players is obvious and it can be motivating. I know you have a good relationship with the whole Cohen family. Is that as good as it seems from the outside?

FL: One hundred percent. That whole family is putting just as much energy and effort that the players are putting into it. They want to make this place one of the craziest, best places in the league, in the world. But they doing it step by step.

They're not skipping steps because when you start skipping steps, it always eventually comes back to bite you. They're learning, figuring things out, and they're doing it the right way. You have Alex taking care of the families. You have Steve overseeing pretty much everything. You have Josh doing media and making sure the Mets name continues to grow with the right people in the right places. The front office is putting the team on the field, and the players are just as excited as ownership.

As lifelong Mets fans, they have the willingness and the desire to improve the organization, [which means] magical things can happen. That's what they've been doing from day one. They said that they were going to do certain things, and they have.

The Rise of an All-Star

RK: Following a great season like last year, how do you identify what to focus on in your offseason?

FL: It is a blessing and a curse because when you get so addicted to getting better, sometimes youget so caught up fixing what you weren't as good at that it gets to a point where it's like, oh damn, I have to go back to what I do and then build off that.

That's how I went about it this offseason. Whereas the things I did a little bit bad, just work at 'em, but get better at the things that I did really good.

RK: One thing about baseball that's probably different than most other sports is the amount of in-season adjustments that players make. Is that a shift you can make during the season when you’re slumping and a hitting coach tips you off to something?

FL: We play every day. So it's not like all the sports where you have to wait three days to make the adjustment.

They say [it takes] 21 days to create a good habit, and it takes one day to break it. So, don't go every other day trying new things. Find something, stick to that, try it for a week or so.

RK: How stressful is it throughout a 162-game season when you're going through a bit of a slump as a player?

FL: When I was a younger player, it was very stressful. Sleepless nights.

As I get older, I have learned to compartmentalize. Just find buckets of like, “All right, I'm home. I'm with my girls, now with my son. Let me be a dad.” Where before it was just baseball, baseball, baseball. The wear and tear on your body, that’s where it becomes a little more tough.

The Elements of Style

RK: Do you think having this part of your life now – married, three young kids – has been an incredible balance for you overall in your life?

FL: I'm living the life I always wanted. I tell people I'm peaking in life in a way because I got an amazing wife. I got three kids. I'm playing in an amazing place.

Every year is about winning.

Every day is about winning.

So, yes, I'm in a fantastic place right now. I think my girls are not my boy. They've brought a fantastic balance. I'm addicted to baseball. I live it, I breathe it, I eat it. It is baseball, baseball, baseball. So, having a family of my own, it almost helps me get away from baseball. And my hope is that my girls are into music, dancing, all the sports, so I can go outside of baseball and do other things with them. Otherwise, it'd be baseball, baseball, baseball.

RK: You're widely considered the most stylish guy in the league, with a cultural relevance that transcends the sport. How do you add that level of focus and fit that into a schedule as long as the baseball season?

FL: It almost becomes a lifestyle. It becomes part of who you are, and when going to other businesses, you hope that it's not disrupting the main thing that I do, which is baseball. So you have to incorporate it into your lifestyle, make it part of your routine.

I love clothing. I love dressing up. I'm looking at different textures and pieces, and I send it to Allen, my style coach, and I just be like, ‘Hey, what you think about this? I'm seeing something like this.’

And then I want to go into the coffee business. So everywhere I go, I look at the coffees and ask questions about it. I'm always drinking coffee in the morning, so why not learn about it while I'm drinking it?

Same thing with real estate. Everywhere I go, there's real estate. Life is real estate, so I'm always like, all right, what's in here? I'll just go in an app and look it up and send it to the people that are helping with it and just learn about it and figure out how much it costs and why it costs that much. And you almost make it part of your daily routine, part of your lifestyle.

The Future of the Sport

RK: I see you as probably the most culturally relevant player in baseball. And it has to do with how you carry yourself, how you dress, how you talk about the things that are important to you. I just think there’s always an intangible, right? When you look at other sports, the ones that have that just have it. And baseball has been lacking that for a while.

What can baseball do to continue to grow its cultural relevance?

FL: In basketball, there's less players and most of the time, correct me if I'm wrong, but most of the players are there for a couple of years together. So it's like a little cloud that goes everywhere.

And baseball, it's a lot of transactions. Players come from different places. And in baseball, there are a lot of different cultures, it’s a little bit more diverse than basketball, football, or any other sport. You have the language barriers as well.

I think the most important thing that baseball can do is to educate their players to help them, put them in places where they can get a little bit of information, and so they can also [have exposure to big ideas]. Sometimes things seem so far-fetched in life that you don't think you can do it. A lot of athletes have been trained to the sport that you’re in to just do it and do it. And then other things seem a little bit far-fetched. By getting the education and just being exposed to other different things, it might help them feel like they can touch it and find it a little bit more achievable.

RK: The 1986 Mets were about as culturally relevant as any team ever has been in MLB. It’s been almost 40 years, and people still talk about that team. As a Met, do you still hear about that era?

FL: They come around, they come around. You have Darryl Strawberry and that group. They come around, and you see them, you feel their presence.

As somebody that likes dressing up and likes bringing different eras and cultures together, you look at their style and how they dress and it's like, ‘Damn, I want to do that. I want to incorporate that.’ And next thing you know, you’re bridging the gap.

I told players that play before me, they set the path for me. They did it. I'm not trying to do anything different. Whatever they did, I'm going to follow it.

Ohtani might be the only one that has a different path than everybody else. You don't see what Ohtani’s doing unless you’re Babe Ruth.

RK: Do his peers think he is that incredible?

FL: He’s elite. Elite pitching, elite hitting, and elite running. You find the most elite runner, and he can match up; you find the most elite hitter, and he can match up; and you find the most elite pitcher, and he can match up. It's fantastic. It's great to watch.

With that being said, we play in a sport at any given day, you can beat anybody.

RK: Speaking of that, I just saw Bryce Harper the other day say that anyone that complains about the Dodgers and their “super team” are losers. When you watch it from the outside, what do you see?

FL: We all have weaknesses. … The Dodgers are doing what's best for the organization. The Mets are doing what's best for the organization. Philly's doing what's best for the organization. Teams that are not doing what's best for them? That's their problem.

I'm worried about what we have here. I appreciate what the Dodgers are doing. They won. They're not satisfied, and they want to continue to put the best products on the field. And I'm sure the Mets are going to do the same thing. And the Phillies and Yankees, they improved as well. The league got tougher.

RK: I agree. And honestly, from personal experience, having super teams or whatever that means doesn’t always work. It's chemistry and it's timing, and there's luck involved. And I imagine nobody in your position sees them as unbeatable; that's not how you approach it.

FL: Not at all. They still got to play the game. I've been in really good teams that sucked and been on bad teams that were great. At the end of the day, it's one of those things where you got to go out and show up and post up and see what happens.

RK: You almost won a World Series in Cleveland [in 2016]. Is that what motivates you? Is it just one of those things where you're not going to let yourself not win one in your career?

FL: A hundred percent. I'm going all the way until I win one, and then when I win one, enjoy it. Have a couple of glasses of wine and say, ‘All right, let's go into the next.’ That's what real competitors do. They accomplish something, and then they go on to the next season because nobody cares about what you did the year before.

I want it. I'm in a great spot to get it, and I feel like winning with this organization is going to be something that will last forever.