Wagon Wheels, Cow Skulls, Hay Bales: MLB All-Star Player Portraits Are Obscenely Texas

The MLB All-Star Game will be happening tonight in Arlington. 

That's in Texas, by the way, and if you didn't know that, the All-Star Game player portraits are here to remind you of this fact, because they're more cartoonishly Texas than Hank Hill crushing a Buc-ee's brisket sandwich while binge-watching Friday Night Lights.

I mean, look at these, they're fantastic in their over-the-top Texas-ness.

Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Dodgers takes a photo of what looks like a room in Frontierland at Magic Kingdom. (Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

José Ramírez of the Cleveland Guardians does some mean mugging for his All-Star portrait but it comes out looking a little more "high school senior portrait." (Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. of the Toronto Blue Jays probably didn't expect a cow skull in his All-Star portrait, but, remember: Texas. (Photo by Rob Tringali/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

Did… did they make them all take photos in a LongHorn Steakhouse? I can practically smell that bread that they give you there (that stuff is phenomenal, by the way). I'm about to order a Flo's Filet on Uber Eats right now, dammit.

I think it's cool that they tried to theme the player portraits instead of making them look like they were taken at Sears Photo Studio. However, I do think they veered just a little bit into those novelty, old-timey saloon photos territory you can get at boardwalks or amusement parks.

Hopefully, this trend will continue when the MLB All-Star Game takes place in Atlanta. Maybe they'll have players pose with a bowl of peaches or maybe some kind of infographic accurately explaining how the election integrity law passed in Georgia that led to widespread misinformation and ultimately, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred pulling the 2021 All-Star Game out of Atlanta.