Trevor May proves to be a multi-'sport' athlete

MINNEAPOLIS -- Ever notice how Trevor May tweets out some variant of "Go Twins!" after every Minnesota victory?

As it turns out, that's a phrase that the Twins reliever encourages around not only the baseball world, but also in the online gaming world, where May, an avid esports streamer, says it serves as an identifier of sorts for him from fellow streamers whenever he enters a gaming lobby.

"God forbid I ever play for another team, I guess, at this point," May said. "I think that it'll follow me wherever I go, which is a cool thing. It's kind of how gaming and streaming culture is. It's creating inside jokes and memes and just stuff to have fun with that kind of connect things that aren't necessarily game-related into the gaming world."

May, who has more than 131,000 followers on popular streaming service Twitch and typically travels with a gaming laptop and peripherals in a hard case, has always been just as active -- if not more -- in the gaming community as he has in the baseball world. As the sports and esports worlds grow closer together, May exists in a quite unique overlap of the communities.

During the Twins' last road trip, he spent Tuesday morning at the team hotel in Anaheim filming an on-location segment for the second episode of PlayTime with KittyPlays, an original series by Allied Esports hosted by popular streamer and competitive esports player Kristen "KittyPlays" Michaela. May was the second professional athlete to be featured on the show, which also brought in Cleveland Browns quarterback Baker Mayfield in its first episode.

"It's just a really interesting bridge," Michaela said. "Everyone's considering gaming right now to be this separate pillar, when in reality, it's an umbrella over traditional sports, music, typical celebrity. We are all gamers, whether you're playing Candy Crush on your phone or Fortnite like these guys, and it was just a great opportunity to bridge between the two worlds."

Michaela said she likes to highlight athletes from more traditional sports on her show because they help to draw parallels between the competitive spirit in both sports and esports and perhaps draw new fans into the esports community. May, for his part, feels that engaging the esports community is important for Major League Baseball in its effort to continue growing into the younger generation.

During his taped interview with Michaela, May talked about how that intersection already exists on his streams to a certain extent -- for example, after a big trade or major baseball news, he braces himself to be bombarded with questions from fans during his next session.

"I think that baseball is in a little bit of a transition," May said. "A lot of decisions we're making from a business standpoint is targeting the younger generation ... and a lot of what the younger generation's into now is video games and esports. Activating both sides -- both directions -- is a good way to merge the worlds a little bit and just kind of connect the entertainment side of things, because a lot of baseball players are gamers, too.

"In the entertainment industry, it's all about eyeballs and who's watching what, and baseball's still a huge part of our culture and our sports identity in the United States, so it's important to key in on that fact."

May said that the Twins, for their part, have continued to encourage the intersection between sports and esports to a greater extent. As an example, they hosted a "Fortnite Day" at Target Field last September in which May and teammate Mitch Garver hosted a pair of professional gamers for a live streaming session and fielded fan questions on the field before a Sunday afternoon game against the Royals.

"It's a pivotal moment," Michaela said. "I feel like it's just this giant wave that's washing over pop culture and society and I think we're all really privileged to see the beginning of it all."

"The owners of the Minnesota Twins, too, are pretty business-savvy as well, as you can imagine," May said. "It just kind of all makes sense. They're not willing to kind of ignore any trend or any marketing opportunity. There might be other owners that aren't as open to it or as used to hearing about it, so that's also nice.

"But yeah, the Twins have become a little bit of a positive meme in gaming -- at least in the Fortnite scene -- and that's good for everyone involved."