It’s not easy finding the perfect people to profile on The Hundreds Blog. There is such a rich history of storytelling on here that you want new chapters to live up to the old ones. You have to find people who are talented, doing something unique, and haven’t been completely canceled.

Whether it’s a chef, a painter, an athlete, musician, or author, we try to bring you stories about people doing things they love, that you’ll love, too. So, when you find someone who checks literally all of the boxes, it’s pretty rare.

Professional athlete. Grew up in Los Angeles. Content creator. Artist. Crypto junkie. Baseball card collector. NFT trailblazer.

I’m ecstatic when we get a great story out on someone doing any one of those things, let alone a chameleon of a person who has all of those characteristics. And if it didn’t already seem like this person was scientifically engineered to be part of The Hundreds Blogimatic Universe, then feast your eyes on this little fun fact: his dad played Biff Tannen in the Back To The Future trilogy.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m talking about New York Mets pitcher, crypto artist, and Chick-Fil-A enthusiast Tommy Wilson, who is, in fact, not a made-up person that we invented in order to talk about all of our favorite things at once.

Tommy Wilson is tough to pin down, one day working on rehabbing his injured shoulder and trying to get back on the mound, and releasing beautiful digital artwork the next. Wilson occupies a space in our culture that not many (if any) do. He’s sitting in the middle of the weirdest Venn diagram ever.

After tearing up the minors and posting an insane ERA at nearly every stop in his career thus far, Wilson got injured around the start of the pandemic and suddenly found himself in a position that millions of Americans did: sitting around the house trying to figure out how to pass the time. So, like so many others we’ve talked about in the last year, Wilson pivoted. He worked on a podcast, he researched and invested in cryptocurrencies, and he started making art. Regretfully, I forgot to ask him if he made any sourdough starters.

Turns out, he’s pretty damn good at all of his new side hustles, just like he is at throwing his heater and nasty changeup. Wilson’s digital artwork leans to the sci-fi side, as he uses brilliant color palettes and 3D rendering to paint gorgeous scenes from far-away galaxies. He’s also been at the forefront of advocating for digital artists to get their fair share in this crypto art gold rush, just as he has fought for his fellow minor league baseball players who struggle more than the average person may realize.

As we gear up for the return of regular life–whatever that means–and start to see the light at the end of the tunnel on this pandemic, I wanted to tap in with Tommy to see where he’s at with baseball, all of the pandemic passions he picked up, and what it’s like being the son of a pop culture icon.

DUKE LONDON: How you doing today man?
TOMMY WILSON: I’m good man how are you?

Hanging in there, I’m currently in rainy New England, where are you?
I’m currently at the Mets spring training complex in Port Saint Lucie, Florida.

How’s the season been going so far?
It’s good, I’m just rehabbing a little shoulder injury I have going on, nothing too serious. I’m just here working through it, trying to get out and play ball.

What’s the timetable for your recovery? You looking forward to playing this season?
Yeah, I should be here for another two or three weeks, I think. Then, I’m headed to Binghamton, NY most likely, which is AA. I’m trying to work my way up this year, we’ll see what happens.

The Mets look great this year so far. What does it mean to play for an organization like that? Who did you grow up rooting for?
It’s super cool and obviously an incredible franchise to be a part of, so much history behind it. They have a really, really good team this year, so it should be fun to watch, and hopefully, I can be a part of it myself. But I grew up in Los Angeles, so I was a huge Dodger fan, going to Dodger games all the time with my family and whatnot, so that was cool to be a part of it as a kid and where my original love for the game of baseball started.

So I’m guessing it was bittersweet last year seeing them win it all? [Laughs]
I know, right?! I mean that’s who I grew up pulling for, you know? And now it’s like, “Well I’m part of the Mets now, I’m pulling for them every year.” So, it’s bittersweet, yeah.

One of your first big NFT projects was with Mets slugger Pete Alonso, benefitting minor league players struggling to make ends meet. Was that his first NFT project, and how did you get him to do it? And for people who are unaware, what are some of the challenges facing minor leaguers right now?
I’ve been in this NFT space for a pretty long time now, and I don’t know how he got my contact information but Pete Alonso’s agent actually reached out to me and they were like, “Hey, we’d love to do a collaboration on an NFT with Pete.” We wanted to give back to a good cause for minor leaguers and Homers for Heros, which is Pete’s charity. We came up with the idea of the virtual card, I did all of the art for it, which was super cool, and it was the first release of that kind for Block Party. And as for the minor leaguers, it’s a grind. I can’t sugarcoat it. It’s not too widely known I guess, but it’s essentially below minimum wage to be a minor leaguer, so that’s obviously a huge struggle for anybody that’s on their own, let alone guys who are married, guys who have kids. So, it’s tough to stay afloat and pay for housing while you’re on the road all of the time. It’s a full-time gig and once you’re done with the season, it’s like, “Okay, what do I want to focus on? Do I want to get a part-time job, or do I want to put more focus into baseball to keep making my way up?” But where’s the balance there? How much time do you invest? And am I making enough money to even keep playing this game? So, it’s a grind for sure. I think it was great to be able to give back to baseball.

How do your teammates and other players you’ve played with or against in the minors deal with that balance? Do most teammates get a part-time job in the off-season or do a lot of players start side hustles?
I’d say the majority of guys really have their focus on baseball because I think, for most of us, this is all we’ve ever known. Baseball, baseball, baseball. The majority of guys spend their off-season training, eating right, and working on their game. Either they have a little side hustle or they’ll get help from family, still living at their family’s house, whatever they can do to fulfill their dream, which is playing in the big leagues.

As far as what you do on the side, you’ve obviously been very involved with crypto both from an investing standpoint and crypto art, but you’ve also done podcasts and other content. How do you even find the time?
I’m pretty busy, to say the least. But I’ve always needed some sort of creative outlet, my whole life. I have a super creative family. I grew up doing music and art and stuff like that but always playing baseball. So I’ve always been doing some sort of creative activity. For a while, it was my podcast, and then I was doing Youtube, or taking photos and editing them. More recently, I’ve been doing 2D drawings, 3D art, stuff like that. I have always needed to fulfill my creative ideas and when my brain comes up with something, I have to execute it.

Even though it’s outdated and doesn’t really make sense, there is a polarity between artist and athlete, and for you to excel so much at both things, do you ever face hurdles or weird looks in the locker room? And have you come across other pro athletes making art?
Totally, I mean they’re definitely polar opposites. All of the guys in the locker room are like, “What the heck is an NFT?” There are people in the locker room that still don’t even know what bitcoin is and I’m blown away. How is that even possible? Then, obviously, there are people in crypto and digital art who couldn’t care less that I’m a baseball player, you know what I mean? They don’t care about baseball, they don’t watch baseball. So, it’s been pretty interesting to merge the two and bring the positive aspects of both into my life. Sharing NFTs with people in the baseball scene and trying to get Mets fans involved, and then sharing my love and passion for baseball with the people in crypto art, it’s been wild. It’s opposite ends of the spectrum.

Did you grow up collecting baseball cards and are you excited that you came into professional baseball right as the popularity of cards is exploding again?
Totally, I was huge on baseball cards. I loved it. I was peak collecting in 2010-2011 which thankfully was right around Mike Trout’s rookie year, so I still have some Mike Trout rookie cards which are worth now a pretty good chunk of change. It’s been a while since I’ve collected baseball cards, but now I’m in this NFT game and kind of got the itch back, I want to open some packs and feel like a kid again. You never know what you’re going to get!

How many of your own cards do you have?
That’s a good question, my parents actually have a ton. [Laughs] Right when my first card came out with Bowman in 2019, that was epic for me. I grew up collecting these cards and now I have my own card and I’m wearing a Mets jersey. It’s so cool. My parents bought up a ton of them, so I just keep a few every once in a while just to hand out to friends and family. My parents really cornered the market on them.

They might be sitting on a gold mine when you get to the bigs.
[Laughs] Yeah, that would be sweet!

It reminds me of Biff’s Sports Almanac, just banking on the future. [Laughs] You are supremely in tune with pop culture, and now with all of these different sub-cultures. How do you explain what you do to your dad and does he understand it? Is he into it at all?
Totally, yeah. I remember when I originally started doing some art during quarantine just for fun to pass the time. Showing it to my dad, he was super into it. Then, I eventually got into NFTs, and he’s all for it. Obviously the big thing for him is digital ownership. He’s been multiplied so many billions of times on the internet with GIFs, photos, Youtube videos, commercials, everything. Now, he’s seeing this digital ownership and it’s pretty incredible. I actually got him approved on SuperRare and he’s got a few pieces up there based on paintings he’s done.

Wow.
Ironically, they are a story of his journey through pop culture and how it affected his life. So it’s all super tied together, which is really cool. He’s super into it, he loves it, he’s all for it, and he gets it too which is awesome.

That’s why we’re big fans of it, it allows artists to really capitalize on their work more than really any platform ever has. I saw you tweet something about not focusing as much on the marketing or hype around your work as much as on the art itself and not putting stuff out all the time is okay. Why is that so important? Why should people focus on the craft?
Now that I’ve been in this space for almost a year now, it’s like I’ve been through all of those phases myself and I’ve seen other people go through those phases where there are times where I’m pushing heavy on Twitter and pushing heavy on Instagram, like really putting all my energy into social media and stuff when I realized I could’ve put way more time into this piece. Ultimately, from what I’ve seen, and what I’ve experienced, the most successful people are not not marketing themselves, but they’re putting all their time into their art because they love the art and they think it’s sick. Yes, you have to market yourself a little bit on Twitter and you have to connect with people, but I just think long-term, and big picture, do your art because you love your art and you want to make something. That’s when I found things go the best for me. Everybody can get so caught up in what everyone else is doing. He’s releasing a project, they’re releasing a project, they’re having a drop here. Who cares, do your thing.

You’ve really only been making art for a year?
Just about. Specifically 2D, 3D art, drawing, and stuff. For the last year, I was doing video editing for a while so I kind of knew how to use After Effects, Illustrator, and stuff like that. But I didn’t really dive in until about a year ago when I started learning 2D and 3D stuff.

How did you find your style in 2D and 3D art and what artists did you really love that you took inspiration from?
It’s a journey finding my style, my own voice as an artist. It comes out in different ways and it started in 2D doing sports art and then I got to a point where I wanted people to like my art for my art and not for who the art was depicting. So I kind of shifted to 3D art and I got inspired by Carlos Marcial. He does these infinity rooms, they’re incredible. I became friends with him through Twitter and crypto art and he helped me kickstart my 3D art journey. His work really inspired me. Gavin Shapiro, his 3D flamingo with the loops and everything. He is so intricate. Honestly, just any 3D art that has loads of detail, I’m just so fascinated and that’s what got me to dive into 3D art because I was like, “Wow I gotta do that myself.”

All over sports, we’ve had owner/players, coach/players. By the looks of it, you might be the first player/digital media executive. [Laughs] When you eventually get called up to the Mets, do you think they’re going to ask you to also run their social media and digital marketing?
I would love to. That’s sort of how I got into this. I was looking for little side jobs here and there during quarantine just to make a little money. I would really love to be a social media manager for a company or a team or something. Taking their photos, editing their photos, stuff like that. I fell into NFTs but I mean if the opportunity presented itself, yeah I would love to do that.

Somebody has to mint Mr. Met, CryptoPunk style.
Yeah, right? That would be sick.