Gerrit Cole may have a $324 million contract and a taste for fine wine, but the New York Yankees ace still drives a 16-year-old car.
Whenever the Bronx Bombers are in the Los Angeles area, Cole gets around in a 2006 Toyota Tacoma that he’s had since he was in high school, according to NJ.com. The white pickup truck, which has 82,000 miles on it, holds a special place in the 30-year-old’s heart.
“It’s the car I drove to everything in high school,” Cole told NJ.com. “It’s funny. I get in there and I think about all the youth baseball things I grew up going to in that truck.”
The truck was a gift from his father, and has been with him through both high school and his college years at UCLA. Cole even took it to spring training in Arizona when he was first drafted by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2011.
Cole, a four-time All-Star who earns $36 million a year, says the main reason he still uses the car — which retailed for between $15,000 and $25,000 when it was released — is pretty straightforward: It still works.
“[It’s] super reliable,” he said. “This isn’t a Toyota commercial, but, man, I really haven’t had any issues with it. I’m not here a whole lot, so when we go to the beach or when we lug around Christmas presents or things like that, it comes in handy.”
That’s not to say Cole hasn’t splurged on any upgrades, though. The 2021 Cy Young award favorite replaced the car’s old CD player with a Pioneer sound system that has Apple CarPlay, according to the report.
Selling the car would only net Cole a little over $7,800, according to vehicle valuation company Kelley Blue Book — about the same amount that Cole earns in less than two hours, on average. A 2021 Toyota Tacoma, meanwhile, has a manufacturer’s suggested retail price starting at $26,400.
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