Batter up! Kate Upton, Hannah Jeter (née Davis) and JoAnna Garcia Swisher are just a few A-listers who’ve been wooed by Major League Baseball athletes over the years.
Garcia was acting for more than a decade before her now-husband, Nick Swisher, was drafted in 2002 by the Oakland Athletics. Two years later, Swisher made his MLB debut with the Oakland As, playing both outfield and first base.
After two trades — Nick moved to the Chicago White Sox and then to the New York Yankees — and six years in the league, the athlete married the Reba alum in 2010. (He later played for the Cleveland Indians and the Atlanta Braves before retiring in 2015.)
“He was really consistent and he was very willing to prove himself. He’s like, ‘I don’t want you to think that I’m some stereotypical athlete,’” JoAnna exclusively told Us Weekly in February 2018, recalling how she fell for her husband. “He was very honest about that. He was like, ‘I’m only going to be dating you and you are the only one and until you believe that I’ll be here reminding you of that.’ And that just really struck me like he’s in it to win it.”
The duo, who share two daughters, were set up by a mutual friend. “It certainly wasn’t the first type of profession for a guy that I wanted to date. I didn’t think like, ‘Yea! This sounds great.’ But the second I met him — I went to go see him play a baseball game against the Mets and I thought, ‘Wow, he’s just really refreshing and he’s really kind,’” the Astronaut Wives Club alum recalled. “He’s exactly what people would imagine him to be. He is what you think he is. He’s a good egg.”
Models Upton and Jeter appear to be equally as lucky, finding their happily ever afters with Justin Verlander and Derek Jeter, respectively.
Upton’s romance with the pitcher made headlines in November 2017 when Verlander won the World Series and wed the Sport’s Illustrated model in the same month.
“I knew she was doing a change, but didn’t know what it was,” Verlander exclusively told Us in March 2018, referring to his wife’s sheer and sexy “late night” wedding gown by Christy Rilling Studio. “The second I saw her in that, I was like, ‘OK, time to go. Let’s get out of here. Wedding over!”
Eight months later, the pair welcomed their first child, a baby girl. When Us caught up with Verlander in March 2019, he couldn’t help but gush over Upton’s transition to motherhood.
“She’s been the most amazing woman and mom,” he said at the time. “I knew that she would set a great example for our daughter, no matter what. It’s the person that she is, it’s the person who I married. I’ve always appreciated her for her strength.”
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Scroll down to see which celebrities have romanced baseball players over the years:
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