// STYLE FEATURES // Stealing Home

PHOTOGRAPHS BY ANDREW DOSUNMU
STYLING BY ANOMA YA WHITTAKER
WORDS BY JACK ERWIN

If you want to meet the future of baseball, head down to Chesapeake, Virginia. The town just off the banks of the Chesapeake Bay is the childhood home of B.J. and Justin Upton, a pair of brothers who are poised to lead a new generation of ballplayers-minus the steroids, syringes, and Congressional hearings.

Back in 2002, when the older B.J. was selected by the Tampa Bay Rays as the second pick in the MLB draft, Justin, then 15-and just a freshman in high school-had one thing on his mind: I’m next. “The first question was, ’Is there another one behind him?’” he recalls. “People were looking for big things from me also.”

Justin one-upped his brother in 2005 when he was taken as the first overall pick by the Arizona Diamondbacks, and he made his big-league debut last August at the age of 19 (B.J. had bowed at the same age in 2004). But B.J. has the upper hand for now, after a stellar 2007 season-his first full year in the majors-in which he hit .300, with 24 home runs.

With both B.J., 23, and Justin, 20, slated for starting gigs this year, ’08 is shaping up as the year of the Brothers Upton. And while they’ll be at the forefront of baseball’s post-steroids era, they’re also looking to take the national pastime back to the days when African-American ballplayers had a bigger presence in the game. (In 1975, 28 percent of major league rosters were African-American; last year the figure was 8 percent, the lowest since the sport was fully integrated.) “We’re definitely proud of that tradition,” says B.J. “Baseball doesn’t appeal to African-American kids as much right now, but we’ve got to get those kids into it. We’re working on it, and I think it’s going to be better in the future.”

An even more daunting task for B.J. might be leading the perennially woeful Rays to a winning season. Last year he watched as Justin’s Diamondbacks won the National League West and made it to the N.L.’s Championship Series. “I was a little jealous, but definitely happy for him,” says B.J. “I’d love to see a Rays-Diamondbacks World Series, and I definitely wouldn’t count it out.” The Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series? It’s truly a new day in baseball.