Baker Mayfield will not again down
A DOZEN OR so children line as much as catch a go from Baker Mayfield, and considered one of them is so gut-wrenchingly cute, I briefly marvel if he is a plant. It is an absurd thought, however the entire situation carries a whiff of predetermined appeal. The visible of Mayfield enjoying soccer with a whole bunch of youngsters at his camp in Norman, Oklahoma, is a publicist’s dream, and this tiny blond, bespectacled youngster is straight out of central casting. He is carrying a Baker-esque headband (each camper acquired one) and knee socks with the quarterback’s face on them. When he walks as much as Mayfield, his sneakers sink into the muddy subject, and everybody watching goes Ooh.
Mayfield hunches over slightly — standing simply over 6 toes tall in shorts and Nikes, he seems extra like a daily dad enjoying catch together with his children than an NFL quarterback — and gingerly locations a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I do not know the place you bought these socks,” Mayfield says, winking. “However I really like them.”
The child is actual, in fact. I can see his mother and father within the crowd; though the solar boils us like bugs beneath a magnifying glass, they’re those desperately making an attempt to seize each second of this encounter. Craig and Malia Harvey drove 12 hours from their small hometown in Colorado to attend Mayfield’s camp. Malia tells me that their 5-year-old, Gavin, wore his Mayfield socks over a swimsuit to his kindergarten commencement ceremony; he is studied each element of the quarterback’s journey, together with his now-iconic celebrations. “He imitates them,” Craig explains.
“When he performs soccer, he lifts up his shirt and celebrates,” Malia says.
“He is operating round, swinging the arm and every little thing,” Craig says.
Dawgs: Mayfield huddles with Swagger, the Browns’ bullmastiff mascot. Peter Yang for ESPN
There was a time not way back, earlier than Mayfield led the Browns to their first win in almost two seasons, earlier than Cleveland heralded him because the franchise’s long-awaited savior, earlier than Mayfield beefed together with his former head coach (extra on that later), when such revelry provoked angst among the many self-appointed guardians of faculty soccer’s ethical code. On two events — one time when Mayfield grabbed his crotch within the basic route of the Kansas sideline, one other when he planted an Oklahoma flag on Ohio State’s subject after an upset victory, equal elements Buzz Aldrin and Buzz McCallister — the younger quarterback was shamed into delivering mea culpas, apologizing to followers for stunting too onerous.
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And but Gavin’s mother and father shrug on the point out of these public stumbles. Certain, they do not need their son doing every little thing Mayfield’s achieved, however they’re completely satisfied tiny child like Gavin has a (comparatively) tiny quarterback to admire, an missed athlete, now probably the most well-known walk-ons in faculty soccer historical past, who proved his doubters mistaken. His top, his flaws, his story — all of it makes Mayfield appear extra actual to them, like he is a human enjoying a place usually reserved for superheroes. “He’s who he’s, and he does not apologize for it,” Malia says.
As I watch the quarterback gently toss a ball to Gavin, I take into consideration how rapidly he is gained over not solely these folks however thousands and thousands extra like them, a area of skeptics who wandered within the quarterback wilderness for many years, solely to seek out themselves transformed into believers by an undersized child from Texas with immeasurable religion in himself. Then I bear in mind one thing Mayfield informed me just a few weeks in the past, once I met him for the primary time. “You get this time period” — Mayfield had paused, making air quotations together with his fingers — “‘franchise QB.’ That is like being a politician.” He spat out the phrase in a means that advised he did not significantly look after it, though it is typically used to explain the league’s most beneficial gamers, the normal position fashions that groups are constructed round.
“You do not have to do this,” he stated.
Mayfield inherited a love of dancing from his mom and incessantly shares it with the world by way of workforce celebrations and viral movies. Jason Miller/Getty Photographs
THE CLEVELAND BROWNS are favored to win their division. Learn that sentence once more and let it wash over you; marvel on the implausibility of these phrases being printed so as, passing untouched via a fact-checker’s fingers. The Cleveland Browns. Are Favored. To Win. Their Division. The group that is doubled as a punch line for the higher a part of the NFL’s trendy period is now the buzziest workforce in soccer, a turnaround that started in earnest final winter when Cleveland gained 5 of its closing seven video games and Mayfield threw his 27th landing, a rookie document. Now everybody — followers, reporters, entrepreneurs, bettors — needs a chunk of the Browns. They need Myles Garrett, the quirky sack artist with scorching potential; they need Odell Beckham Jr., the wildly gifted large receiver who was traded from the Giants earlier this 12 months.
However most of all, they need Mayfield.
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And right here he’s: strolling into the Browns’ apply facility in Berea, Ohio, on a cold April afternoon, dressed unassumingly in grey sweats, his bushy offseason beard shaking like a turkey’s wattle when he laughs (he laughs loads). The prince who was promised. Each time Mayfield enters an area, he has a means of connecting with everybody in his path that jogs my memory of a remark coach Hue Jackson made final spring, evaluating Mayfield to the Pied Piper. (The analogy, meant for example the quarterback’s uncommon charisma, struck most individuals as deeply bizarre.) Strolling previous Browns staffers, the quarterback doles out daps and bro nods, stopping to pet Moose, the chocolate Lab who lives within the Browns’ workplace. When somebody presents Mayfield with a field of cookies, he pats his stomach and sighs. “You recognize I am making an attempt to steer clear of sweets!” he says.
I ask him if it feels bizarre, beginning the offseason with a lot hype. “For them,” he says, flicking his wrist towards the door. “Not for me.” He cocks an eyebrow and grins. “For everyone else round right here, it has been fairly horrible to be a part of this workforce for some time.” Then he laughs. Not unkindly however in a means that means he thinks everybody in Cleveland is in on the joke.
Till the day of the draft, Mayfield wasn’t positive the Browns would take him with the primary total decide. (For some time, he was satisfied New England would commerce up for him at No. 2.) He discovered the problem of becoming a member of a long-struggling workforce — Cleveland’s final playoff look was in 2002 — exhilarating. “I needed to return right here and play and be the one to vary it instantly,” he explains, snapping his fingers. The Browns had different plans. In March, earlier than Mayfield was picked, the workforce introduced that any quarterback drafted would sit and examine behind veteran Tyrod Taylor, a developmental street map with help throughout the group.
Cleveland’s final playoff look was in 2002. Mayfield needs to vary that. Peter Yang for ESPN
“I wasn’t completely satisfied about it, however I understood it,” Mayfield says. He appreciated that the workforce was upfront concerning the plan — honesty means a terrific deal to him — and he noticed the worth in studying on the sidelines, particularly after sitting out a 12 months at Oklahoma. He additionally respects Taylor, whom he describes as considerate and type, and he did not need to step on his toes. “There is not any motive to be an ass,” he says. Nonetheless, it was slightly infuriating. As a rookie, he was informed to be deferential and quiet, qualities that, unsurprisingly, don’t come naturally to a participant who as soon as trolled the Texas Longhorns after a Cotton Bowl win by galloping off the sphere on an imaginary horse.
“Me being me, I wanna be that man within the locker room, I wanna be myself. However on the identical time, I had heard so many various issues from totally different guys and skim issues … ” Mayfield sighs. “I needed to undergo the method and be taught as a lot as I might so when the second arose — then it might be my time. Then I could possibly be that particular person and let all of it go.”
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That second arrived prior to anticipated. Mayfield had been trying ahead to the Jets sport in Week three as quickly because the Browns’ schedule was launched, praying that he’d have the chance to go head-to-head with rookie Sam Darnold, a quarterback he’d been in comparison with for years. “I awakened that morning” — he pauses and grins, slightly sheepishly –“not feeling harmful. However I awakened and stated: ‘It is sport day.’ I had a unique kind of juice that morning. It was bizarre.”
After struggling to maneuver the ball for a lot of the primary half, Taylor exited the sport with a concussion, and Mayfield got here in with simply over a minute left. He threw his first go to receiver Jarvis Landry, threading the ball between two defenders for a primary down. The house followers misplaced their minds. “It was like a weight lifted off their shoulders,” Mayfield says, earlier than imitating an imaginary fan and whispering: “Thanks.” He shakes his head. “You might inform the power was within the air. You might really feel it: This could be the primary win. And when it lastly occurred, it was like, ‘Nicely, what will we do now?'”
That evening, the town celebrated just like the Browns had simply gained the Tremendous Bowl. The merriment was short-lived; the workforce went on to lose 5 of its subsequent six video games, with Mayfield struggling to remain upright (he took 21 sacks). Throughout that interval, experiences surfaced that Jackson, who had compiled a 1-31 document over his first two seasons as head coach, was tangling with offensive coordinator Todd Haley behind closed doorways, a feud that had been foreshadowed within the preseason by a few tense scenes on HBO’s “Exhausting Knocks.” Mayfield’s eyes widen when speaking concerning the Shakespearean drama that unfolded in Berea final fall. “Individuals do not know,” he says. “Any time you mix the personalities we had — at offensive coordinator, at defensive coordinator and head coach — heads are gonna conflict. That is only a identified factor.”
As tensions mounted, Mayfield tried to maintain his head down. “I had by no means gone via a rookie season earlier than, however I am fairly positive that is not precisely the way it’s presupposed to go,” he says, a wry look crossing his face. Then, the morning after the Browns misplaced their third straight sport, falling 33-18 to the Steelers on the finish of October, all hell broke unfastened. Cleveland fired not solely Jackson however Haley too; Gregg Williams, the notoriously polarizing defensive coordinator — and the supply of many meme-able moments on “Exhausting Knocks,” principally due to his profanity — was elevated to interim head coach.
Two weeks later, the Bengals introduced they have been bringing on Jackson, a former offensive coordinator in Cincinnati beneath Marvin Lewis, to educate the workforce’s protection as a particular assistant. The coach’s supporters identified that he had a proper to seek out work and that Cincinnati was a comfortable touchdown spot. However the information landed with a thud in Cleveland. Jackson, an offensive specialist, was intimately accustomed to the internal workings of the Browns’ sport plan — and now he was serving to the Bengals’ protection, which they needed to face two instances that season. Guard Joel Bitonio stated their former coach had gone “again to the enemy.” When Cleveland confronted the Bengals for the primary time that November, crushing them 35-20, security Damarious Randall picked off an Andy Dalton go and handed the ball to Jackson on the sideline.
“On the core of every little thing is the truth that he is at all times been informed no … you’ll be able to’t do that,” Mayfield’s new head coach Freddie Kitchens stated. “I feel we’ve got that in widespread.” AP Photograph/Ron Schwane
After the sport, cameras caught an ungainly interplay between the coach and Mayfield, who appeared to dodge a hug earlier than shaking Jackson’s hand stiffly. Requested about it later, Mayfield referred to as Jackson out for going to a division rival. The following day, ESPN analyst Damien Woody criticized Mayfield’s feedback, noting that Mayfield had left Texas Tech for Oklahoma. The quarterback responded within the feedback on an Instagram video of Woody’s remarks: I did not lose 30+ video games be faux after which try this. … I wasn’t gonna have a scholarship. Good strive although buddy.
Would a so-called franchise quarterback clap again on social media? In all probability not. However Mayfield does not remorse it. “I stated what I meant,” he says. “Do not rise up in entrance of us the week earlier than and attempt to inform us you are doing every little thing for us, then go take a job with a workforce we play twice a 12 months. It was a kind of honesty and respect issues.” The quarterback says he did not thoughts the blowback, although it did trouble him when folks stated he was disregarding Jackson’s must earn a dwelling, on condition that his former coach was nonetheless getting paid by the Browns. I ask him if he relished beating the Bengals final season. “Completely,” he says. “I am not gonna deceive you and say that the primary time I performed Hue didn’t really feel good. It is human nature to need to get revenge.”
At this time, Jackson, who’s now not working for Cincinnati, says he does not remorse taking the Bengals job. “I needed to educate and assist a good friend and group I respect,” he says. He tells me he hasn’t spoken with Mayfield for the reason that season ended however does not harbor any sick will towards his former cost. “Baker’s gonna be Baker,” he says. “He was dissatisfied that I left and was with a workforce within the division. … That was his feeling and I’ve to respect it.”
Jackson provides that he stands by his Pied Piper analogy, noting that Mayfield “has a means of drawing folks to him” together with his charisma that astonished him, even when the coach discovered himself on the skin trying in. “Opponents? He does not such as you. Individuals on the fence? He does not need to be round them,” Jackson says. “That is the best way he is made. … You are both all-in with him otherwise you’re not.”
His description sounds extreme, nevertheless it is not meant as criticism. At the least not fully. “It serves the aim you want,” Jackson says, “if it results in wins.”
Mayfield made his Browns debut Sept. 20 in opposition to the Jets, after starter Tyrod Taylor exited the sport with a concussion. Peter Yang for ESPN
MAYFIELD’S FRIENDS CALL him “The 12-Yr-Previous,” as a result of, properly, he type of seems like he is 12 (the quarterback turned 24 in April). When he smiles, you’ll be able to see a tiny hole between his two entrance enamel; it is easy to think about him as a mischievous little child, beginning meals fights and pulling pigtails. However his mom, Gina, says that could not be farther from the reality. “He was a guidelines follower,” she tells me over the cellphone, cracking up slightly. As a boy, she says, Baker loathed getting in bother. Gina recounts one incident, now notorious within the Mayfield household, when she requested her 9-year-old son to go outdoors and roll down the home windows of the household’s parked Chevy Tahoe and he by chance drove it throughout the road and right into a tree belonging to the city’s mayor. “He was hysterically upset and crying,” she says. “I did not assume I used to be gonna get him to return out of the home for 2 days.”
As a baby rising up simply outdoors Austin, Texas, Mayfield says he was a trainer’s pet, principally as a result of he needed to please others. (One among his biggest accomplishments in elementary faculty, he provides, was incomes the fitting to nap behind his kindergarten trainer’s desk.) He was shy and deeply afraid of creating errors. “I hated talking in entrance of individuals,” he says. Mayfield did not actually discover his voice till the top of highschool, when he was navigating the school recruiting course of. After simply 4 FBS colleges (Florida Atlantic, Rice, New Mexico and Washington State) supplied him scholarships, the younger quarterback felt confused and, at instances, misled. “I noticed I am gonna have to talk my thoughts if I need to know what’s actually gonna occur right here,” he says.
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From there, he launched into one of many extra outstanding careers in faculty soccer historical past — and documented each occasion of disrespect he encountered alongside the best way. After Mayfield walked on at Texas Tech and have become the starter, his relationship with head coach Kliff Kingsbury soured; he informed the media that Kingsbury, now the coach of the Arizona Cardinals, had frozen him out (the 2 have since buried the hatchet, he says). He took screenshots of feedback from reporters who questioned his bona fides. However when requested if he has come throughout any insults these days, he demurs. “I have not achieved that shortly,” he says. “There comes a time once I’m gonna have to dam that out. … You have to discover your individual motivation.”
He sees the skepticism on my face and giggles. “After I need to stir the pot, I am going to click on to see what [Colin] Cowherd’s stated these days,” he says. In April, after the Fox Sports activities radio host stated his sources had informed him that Beckham was sad about being traded to the Browns, Mayfield snapped at him on Twitter: “Come to Cleveland and ask O if he truly likes it.” In April, he lashed out once more when Cowherd listed a few of Beckham’s off-the-field incidents, calling the host a “clown.” (Mayfield has an “incident” of his personal on his document — in faculty, he pleaded responsible to public intoxication and disorderly conduct.)
After I ask Mayfield concerning the back-and-forth, he says it bothers him when folks perpetuate misinformation concerning the large receiver. “He is right here to work, and he needs to be surrounded by individuals who love him and help him and permit him to be himself,” he says. “He is right here to play in entrance of followers who truly care, who will truly present as much as each sport and pack the stadium and love him for who he’s.” (Regrettably, the Browns don’t play the Giants this 12 months.)
Wait ’til this 12 months: Browns followers are coming into comparatively uncharted territory, with their workforce a preseason favourite to win its division. Aaron M. Sprecher by way of AP)
Mayfield’s method to management has at all times been pushed by tribalism. “He is received his guys and he is received their again and when you’re not with them … you are in opposition to him,” explains Browns backup Garrett Gilbert, a Lake Travis native who’s identified Mayfield since elementary faculty. “There is not any in-between. It’s totally black-and-white.”
This binary framework does not at all times translate in a enterprise through which the kinship of a shared jersey issues much less to house owners than the quantity of useless cash on a person’s contract. In June, Mayfield was requested about considered one of his teammates, Duke Johnson, a veteran operating again who had been phased out of the offense and was asking for a commerce. The quarterback’s seemingly unsympathetic response — “You are both on this practice otherwise you’re not,” he informed reporters — rubbed some gamers the mistaken means.
It was a uncommon misstep for an athlete who, by all accounts, possesses the seductive charisma of a cult chief, galvanizing his teammates by drawing battle strains at each potential flip. Mayfield’s coach at Oklahoma, Lincoln Riley, says he was captivated when he watched the walk-on training together with his faculty teammates earlier than his first season, screaming encouragements and pushing them to work more durable earlier than he had even performed a snap. Mayfield, he says, is in contrast to any participant he is been round. “He can play his greatest when he is speaking trash and he is mad and has that edge,” he says. “Most quarterbacks are at their worst — he is at his greatest.”
Forward of the 2018 draft, Riley’s full-throated endorsement of his quarterback helped counter the whispers that the Heisman winner was a clone of Johnny Manziel, a comparability that annoyed Mayfield, who calls it lazy. He imitates an nameless scout, reducing his voice: “On the sphere, they’ve an identical sport. However off the sphere …they’re actually the identical particular person.”
And but, once I ask him if he is nonetheless fearful about being painted incorrectly, he purses his lips. “I really feel like athletes use the ‘I am misunderstood’ factor an excessive amount of,” he says. “In the event you’re fearful about being understood, you are fearful concerning the mistaken issues.”
From left, Myles Garrett, Jarvis Landry, Odell Beckham Jr. and Mayfield will probably be a drive to be reckoned with this fall. AP Foto/Ron Schwane
A MONTH AFTER assembly Mayfield, I return to Cleveland, the place he is being photographed for this story. As he alters into his uniform, his fiancée, Emily Wilkinson, sits on a small stage in a warehouse-like loft house close to the set, heels dangling over the sting. A pair from Indiana is stocking the bar and organising tables; they’re getting married right here this weekend. As Wilkinson, whose personal marriage ceremony to Mayfield would happen in July, chats with them about their decor, the quarterback creeps behind them and sticks his tongue out at her.
“Is she speaking s—?” he asks.
Wilkinson rolls her eyes and shakes her head, her lengthy blond braid flopping over her shoulder. “We’re not speaking about you,” she says, earlier than turning to the bride. “Guard the vodka.”
The quarterback and his fiancée, who’s from Nebraska, have been launched in 2017 by a mutual good friend. On the time, Wilkinson was dwelling in Los Angeles. She says she was cautious of relationship a “punk soccer participant” and ignored Mayfield’s advances for months: He repeatedly adopted and unfollowed her on Instagram, making an attempt to draw her consideration. Lastly, in late December, they exchanged messages. He begged her to fulfill him earlier than the Rose Bowl, his closing faculty soccer sport. She reluctantly agreed to seize lunch.
“I used to be assuming he’d be the standard playboy athlete,” says Wilkinson, who’s 4 years older than Mayfield. As a result of the Rose Bowl was the subsequent day, she thought they’d spend most of their date speaking concerning the sport. Nevertheless it barely got here up. As an alternative, she says, Mayfield spent their whole first date peppering her with questions on herself, her household, her plans for the longer term. The following day, after Oklahoma misplaced, ending its season, the quarterback texted Wilkinson and informed her he was staying in LA. Three days later, he moved in together with her and her brothers. Six months later, Emily and Baker have been engaged.
As Mayfield walks again from the shoot, he pauses to signal the couple’s marriage ceremony visitor guide. “He is such a softy,” says Wilkinson, watching from the stage. “He is a mama’s boy.” Yearly, the quarterback sends a packet of birthday playing cards to Gina, choosing out ones with the corniest jokes. He inherited his love of dancing from his mom; when he was small, she would placed on Michael Jackson CDs and twirl him round the lounge.
Mayfield says his eyes are large open concerning the scrutiny that can observe him this season. The Browns host the Redskins of their first preseason sport Aug. eight. Peter Yang for ESPN
Mayfield may not care about being misunderstood, however lots of the folks in his orbit appear decided to set the document straight on the divide between his private and non-private personas. “My notion was loads like everyone’s — that he was type of an outlandish, fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants kinda man,” says Browns head coach Freddie Kitchens, who was teaching the workforce’s operating backs at the beginning of final season. “What I discovered was anyone completely totally different.” As Kitchens received to know the rookie quarterback, he recognized parallels of their journeys. “On the core of every little thing is the truth that he is at all times been informed no: You may’t do that. We’re on the lookout for another person. You are not this,” he says. “I feel we’ve got that in widespread.”
Earlier than Kitchens was named offensive coordinator final October, he had been an offensive assistant within the NFL for 12 seasons. However he had by no means been requested to interview for a coordinator place. “I do not sound such as you, or most coaches, so the notion of me is totally different,” he tells me in a thick Alabama drawl. “You’ve got received a bunch of gurus on the market that let you know what a QB ought to appear to be and what a head coach ought to appear to be,” says Kitchens, who bears a stronger resemblance to somebody’s cornhole-loving uncle than, say, Kyle Shanahan or Sean McVay. “We do not appear to be anyone’s model of these folks.”
The day that Kitchens took over the offense, he swore to his gamers that in the event that they put their belief in him, he would not allow them to down. “He was emotional. That was life-changing for him,” Mayfield says. Over the subsequent two months, coach and quarterback labored hand in hand to repair an offense that had stalled. Kitchens zeroed in on the performs Mayfield was comfy with, together with ideas from faculty. “A number of the play-action and zone-read stuff, the RPO, how we ran a few of our empty packages once I was at Oklahoma, we would speak about it and get on the identical web page,” Mayfield says.
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After Kitchens took over playcalling, the Browns’ offense exploded. Throughout the first half of the season, Mayfield accomplished 58% of his passes with a QBR of simply 36; during the last eight weeks, his completion share rose to 68% and his QBR almost doubled. Below the brand new regime, he landed close to the highest of the league in most passing classes. As quickly because the season ended, Cleveland introduced that it was selling Kitchens, the coach who hadn’t even been thought-about for a coordinator job, to the highest spot. Mayfield was elated. “You might inform he simply needed the very best for his gamers,” he says.
Coming off the Browns’ robust end final season, the hype across the workforce was simmering. Then the Beckham information broke — and expectations erupted. Whereas rumors a few commerce had been floating across the NFL for weeks, Mayfield stated it was confirmed to him only a few minutes earlier than everybody else, when Kitchens despatched him a easy textual content: “We simply received higher.”
The quarterback smiles on the reminiscence, nearly wistfully. “I used to be overcome with emotion,” he says.
Kitchens was proper, in fact: The Browns did get higher. So much higher. So significantly better that, like Mayfield himself, they’ll now not name themselves underdogs, harvesting motivation from perceived slights. After years of being shunted to the outer fringes of the NFL’s zeitgeist, the workforce is totally within the highlight, with 4 prime-time video games on its schedule after enjoying at evening simply 3 times within the prior three seasons mixed. Mayfield is totally conscious of the ear-splitting buzz, however he insists it does not fear him. “This is the factor,” he says, smirking slightly. “They’re gonna hype you up. However as quickly as you lose a few video games, they will throw you within the trash.”
If that occurs — if the Browns lose, and the quarterback struggles, and the effervescent optimism in Cleveland boils over like an unwatched pot — how will Mayfield reply? It is simple to reject the established order within the NFL whenever you’re successful, however adversity invitations second-guessing and hate. It is why so many “franchise quarterbacks” are so bland in public. Certain, a few of them are simply boring folks, however others say little as a result of their silence affords them safety, shielding them from the scrutiny that inevitably follows self-expression.
Mayfield is aware of all of this however maintains that he does not care. He is not afraid of scrutiny — god is aware of he is used to it — and he does not desire a defend. “I am gonna be myself and imagine in that,” he says. “And when you do not prefer it, that is OK.”
Baker Mayfield on the duvet of ESPN The Journal’s Soccer Concern. Photograph by Peter Yang for ESPN
Styling by Courtney Mays; grooming by Connie Kellers; manufacturing by Allison Cole; wardrobe: cowl picture: jacket by The Kooples; bomber jacket and shorts by Nike; T-shirt by Uniqlo; footwear by Nike; Baker with canine in studio: monitor swimsuit by Daniel Patrick; T-shirt by ATM; footwear by Nike; bracelets by David Yurman & Miansai; Baker with children: sweatshirt by Homage; pants by Perry Ellis; footwear by Nike.