Prince Fielder. Breakout star of the new ESPN body issue

This Dude. Right here…

He’s one of 22 athletes profiled in the ESPN’s new body issue. Among them, there is a brother naked on a BMX bike, a naked blond with a beautiful pair of carbon fiber ankles and feet, and a nude surfer girl named Coco Ho. Coco Ho.

Venus – the Williams sister whose ass won’t dent your eyeballs with its awesomeness – is on one  cover. There’s a blond snowboarder girl on another, while an underwater dude, and guys with a basketball and football respectively take up the remaining three. But this guy with his lumberjack beard and his washboard abs comfortably sheathed beneath a layer of, um, unsulation, is my new hero.

His name is Prince Fielder. He’s a first baseman for the Texas Rangers. His daddy was Cecil Fielder, a former professional baseball player, and the two were the are the only father-son combination to each hit 50 MLB home runs in a season. All of which would mean much more to me if I followed baseball.

To me, the most interesting thing about this dude is the fact that anyone asked him to take his clothes off in the first place.

He’s chubby. Like me. You know, not exactly fat, but miles and miles from skinny. And for a lot of women, my wife included, he represents the Goldilocks zone for the male physique; just right.

She showed it to me yesterday. I nodded my head a bit. “Yeah… okay.” I mean, I’m not into sports, and I’m not into naked dudes, with or without baseball bats. Then I began to read the comments. Ahh, the appreciation of it all. Here was a brother who doesn’t look all bulked up and chiseled out, and women liked him.

Until Fielder, Rick Ross was the poster child for big brothers, and with his floppy tits and his total lack of shame, I didn’t know whether to root for him or get him an asthma inhaler.

Of course, he’s since lost 100 pounds using cross-fit, but when he was at his biggest, his admirers weren’t into huskiness. They liked fat, and the sheer gangsta swag that it takes to throw your shirt to the ground when you know damned well you’re the biggest dude in the room. That wasn’t me.

Fielder became my spirit animal yesterday. Fit, but not chiseled. Muscled, but not like a professional wrestler. More like that dude that helped you move your refrigerator.

I mean, I will probably never see my six-pack. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t still be busting my ass to become a healthier, more capable daddy. And this is one vision of fitness that I can appreciate without my inner voice screaming, “Yeah right.”