Look purely at the statistics, and the incredulity of Calvin Wooden is understandable.

They were on the tip of his tongue Sunday afternoon when reached by phone: a 7.71 ERA in 16 1/3 innings between Double-A and Triple-A this season. Go back further, to when Trevor Rogers arrived with the Orioles via trade, and he allowed 16 runs in 19 innings during four starts last year.

Wooden, a 30-year-old Orioles fan, didn’t believe in him. Plain and simple. Wooden probably wasn’t alone in that disbelief prior to Rogers’ 2025 debut at Fenway Park on Saturday, but he was alone in making a bet that he will now keep — the sort of bet he has made in a few prior instances.

“If Trevor Rogers pitches a shutout, I’ll get his name tattooed on my ass,” Wooden posted on X.

Rogers, of course, pitched 6 1/3 shutout innings.

So Wooden is getting a tattoo of Rogers’ name on his ass.

“I don’t want it to come off as though I was hoping Trevor Rogers was going to have a bad start,” said Wooden, a lifelong Orioles fan from Baltimore who now lives near Reading, Pennsylvania. “I was being a Debbie Downer. This team’s got me in my emotions a little bit. I was maybe hoping it would be reverse psychology, and I guess it worked, because he ended up throwing the best game that one of our starters has all year.”

This week, Wooden plans to have Rogers’ name permanently printed on his tuchus. Rogers won’t be alone, though. One might think Wooden would have learned his lesson the first time, but no. Rogers’ name will join NFL quarterback Geno Smith and Orioles outfielder Heston Kjerstad on Wooden’s royal hindquarters.

They all come with a laugh, though. That’s why Wooden does it. The absurdity? Bring it on.

“It’s not for attention,” Wooden said. “I was raised by a father who loved to make jokes, likes to make people laugh. That’s just what I like to do. That’s why I make dumb memes on Twitter.”

Still, why is the tattoo on his butt?

“The reason it’s there is the only people who are actually going to see it are the people I want to see it, or my girlfriend,” Wooden said. “And I already got it cleared by her the third time. She‘s sick of it at this point, but she doesn’t care. It’s not like I’m getting a tattoo on my arm or my forehead.”

Let’s take a step back for a moment. The year was 2016, and the Ravens were middling. So were the New York Jets, and when the teams met Oct. 24, Wooden tweeted a similar proposition for his small number of followers. If Smith beat the Ravens in his return as a starting quarterback, his name would go on Wooden’s butt.

Well, Smith tore his ACL in the second quarter. Ryan Fitzpatrick entered and engineered the Jets’ win against Baltimore. And, when Wooden ran a Twitter poll for whether he still had to get Smith‘s name on his behind, the overwhelming verdict was yes.

“I was maybe hoping it would be reverse psychology, and I guess it worked, because he ended up throwing the best game that one of our starters has all year.”

Orioles fan Calvin Wooden

So he did it.

Years went by before Wooden would open that door again. It was June 29, 2024, and Kjerstad came to the plate with the bases loaded for the Orioles. Wooden fired off the tweet: “If Heston hits this grandslam I’ll get his name tatted on my ass.”

The next pitch, some 10 seconds after Wooden hit send, Kjerstad sent the ball flying for a grand slam.

This time, Wooden’s friend, a graphic designer, made a mock-up tattoo for Wooden. It was bigger than Smith‘s, but it also looks cooler (for those who get to look at it, such as his girlfriend, Veronica). Veronica seems OK with all this.

The couple were two months into dating when he shot out the Kjerstad grand slam tweet. She joined him at the tattoo parlor for the experience.

“We live together. Our relationship is great,” Wooden said. “It’s just funny to think about how one of our first handful of dates was coming to the tattoo parlor and seeing my bare butt being tattooed by another woman. So she‘s great.”

It was a harder sell to the rest of his family.

“My mom and my grandmother, and explaining to them why they were seeing Instagram videos of me talking about a tattoo on my butt, that was a little bit harder to explain to them,” Wooden said. “But, hey, they still love me.”

Then came Saturday, when Wooden hit send on a post for Rogers.

By that point, Rogers had completed a scoreless first inning. Wooden, who is the food and beverage manager for Strasburg Rail Road Co., got in his car to drive home from work. His phone began to buzz like crazy, and he pulled over to check the box score.

Rogers really did it — after the disastrous beginning of his Orioles career, he produced a gem that helped Baltimore to a win. There’s no going back for Wooden, and he plans to have the newest tattoo inked this week.

All that is left now is the design and placement. With the size of the Kjerstad tattoo, there isn’t much space on his right buttock. He could add Rogers’ name beside it, closer to the thigh; he could go under Smith‘s name; he could jump over to his left cheek, even.

“They’re just butt cheeks,” Wooden said. “It will get on me one way or another.”

Wooden isn’t worried. He is all about a good laugh, even if it’s at his own — and his butt’s — expense.