This Is the First Watch Worn During an MLB Game: ‘I Took It Into the Game and Made History’
Watches have been to the moon and to the wreck of the Titanic. They have summited Mount Everest, joined James Bond on secret missions, and been on Rafael Nadal’s wrist as he won major tournaments. But until recently, no player had ever worn a timepiece during a Major League Baseball game. That changed on Friday night, when Oakland A’s outfielder Lawrence Butler trotted onto the diamond against the Houston Astros.
Butler, one of the most stylish players in baseball, made history by strapping on Norqain’s neon-green WILD One Skeleton X-Lite before assuming his position in right field. Despite MLB’s history stretching back 150 years, there is no record of any other player ever wearing a watch during live gameplay. “That was really cool,” Butler tells me over the phone. While wearing a watch isn’t strictly prohibited in the show—and players are known for wearing ample jewelry around their neck—Butler was still wary.
He only felt comfortable donning it because Friday’s game fell on MLB Players’ Weekend, when the league encourages players to wear custom gear, but he still actively hid the watch from his coach throughout the innings. In regular circumstances, Butler says, he would’ve been expected to be instructed to take the watch off by league officials. “You got a lot of restrictions because they don’t want players cheating; they don’t know what the watch is capable of,” he says.
In a sport where you’re attempting to get
And in a sport where you’re attempting to get your bat around to hit balls thrown 100 miles per hour, you can’t blame batters for being reluctant to carry any extra weight on their wrists. However, Norqain’s WILD One isn’t just any watch. While the piece’s lime-on-acid case brings a lot of presence, it weighs just 78 grams (for comparison’s sake, I just weighed a normal-sized apple: 218 grams).
“You could really barely feel that you had it on,” Butler says. “So I didn’t think it was going to mess my swing up. I hit with it during batting practice, and it didn’t mess anything up. I had a really good batting practice, especially. I took it into the game and made history.”
While he may have successfully hid the watch from his coach, he says both teammates and fans—some of whom called out “What time is it?” from the stands—loved it.
To match his history-making wristwear, Butler also wore a pair of custom Nike cleats with the inner workings of a watch painted on it, courtesy of Stadium Custom Kicks. As a kid, Butler says, he became a big fan of watches by watching every episode of GQ’s “On the Rocks” video series, in which celebrities break down their jewelry collections. He’s worthy of an episode himself now: Butler owns several Rolex watches, including the gold-and-black “Pikachu” Daytona, a Sky-Dweller, and a rose-gold Day-Date.
The A’s outfielder was first introduced to Norqain,
The A’s outfielder was first introduced to Norqain, meanwhile, while filming a getting-ready video with GQ in New York earlier this year. Norqain has found itself in the spotlight several times in 2026, with Will Ferrell picking up the brand’s NHL-themed chronograph and tennis player Stan Wawrinka debuting a new model on the court at Wimbledon last month. With hockey legend Sidney Crosby among its investors and a plethora of major partnerships in the world of sports, Norqain is an especially good fit for top-level athletes like Butler.
“Going to be honest, I didn’t know too much about Norqain,” Butler says. “I honestly didn’t know what type of watches they made or how their watches looked. So when they gave it to me in New York, I was like, ‘Dang, this watch is actually really light.’”
All that history-making will go to a good cause. Butler plans to auction off the Norqain watch, which retails for $6,790 before it hits the field during a Major League Baseball game, to benefit his L4W foundation.
Source: www.gq.com
