These are the O's you're looking for: Gunnar struts new Star Wars bat

CINCINNATI -- Gunnar Henderson has been known for his bat after taking home AL Player of the Month honors while slugging a league-best 10 home runs in March and April.

But the Orioles shortstop is also showing off another bat, one he brought out for May the Fourth, informally known as Star Wars Day.

Henderson unveiled a custom bat, created by Chandler Bats, before Saturday’s 2-1 victory over the Reds at Great American Ball Park. The handle appears like a lightsaber hilt, with a red blade on one side with images of Darth Vader, Darth Maul and the Death Star. On the other, a blue blade with Luke Skywalker, Yoda and an X-wing starfighter.

Being a Star Wars fan is seemingly par for the course in the young Orioles locker room, a group that largely came through the Minors together. In addition to owning the custom bat, Henderson loves building LEGO sets with outfielder Colton Cowser, who recently bought a lightsaber.

“I've always been a fan of [Star Wars],” said Henderson, who’s been told he looks like Anakin Skywalker. “But then in ‘21, I was in the team hotel in Spring Training and my now-fiancee and I were just walking through Target one day, and we walked by the LEGO section and saw the heads that you could build. It just kind of took off from there.”

Henderson, Cowser and infielder Jordan Westburg are the three biggest Star Wars fans on the team. Of course, not only were they born after the original trilogy came out, but Henderson and Cowser were born after the prequel trilogy started. They grew up watching The Clone Wars on TV and have found that Star Wars shows are their favorite way to pass the time on plane rides.

Cowser and Westburg got Henderson to start watching “The Clone Wars” and “Rebels” -- it’ll take a while for him to get through a combined 11 seasons -- and the three have been eating up “Andor”, “Ahsoka”, “The Bad Batch” and “The Mandalorian”. On the clubhouse couches, they talked about how excited they were to watch the newly released “Tales of the Empire” on the flight back to Baltimore on Sunday.

“The stories are better all the time,” Westburg said. “You can watch a series that tells a story that's way better than an hour-and-30-minute movie. But when I'm not reading or doing something, that’s how I spend my time.”

Collecting memorabilia and obsessing over Star Wars isn’t just a hobby for this group. It’s also been a way to destress after games. Coming up through the Minor Leagues and in the Majors, Henderson and Cowser built the Millennium Falcon and Razor Crest LEGO sets, which came in at a combined 13,728 pieces. They’re still trying to find the Imperial Star Destroyer set, which was selling for $559.99 before going out of stock.

From a certain point of view, it’s been a key to the Orioles building camaraderie and an early lead in the AL East.