{"id":181707,"date":"2025-08-28T06:09:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-28T06:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/181707\/"},"modified":"2025-08-28T06:09:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-28T06:09:27","slug":"pearl-jams-eddie-vedder-tests-out-new-mlb-guitar-trophy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/181707\/","title":{"rendered":"Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder tests out new MLB guitar trophy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Before MLB\u2019s newest trophy was offered up as the prize in a competition between the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres, it had to pass through the hands of Pearl Jam frontman Eddie Vedder.<\/p>\n

The custom Fender Telecaster guitar, named the Vedder Cup, is said to have been played by its namesake for \u201cabout an hour\u201d before it was shipped off to T-Mobile Park in Seattle. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave it a good run through,\u201d George Webb, Pearl Jam\u2019s equipment manager, told<\/a> the Seattle Times on Monday. \u201cHe always likes to feel like he puts a little energy, you know, spiritual energy, into an instrument. Not just hand off something that\u2019s brand-new, never-touched kind of thing. So yeah, jammed on it for about an hour. Had a good time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trophy features many nods<\/a> from the 60-year-old musician, including a hand-drawn \u201ccresting wave\u201d illustration and an arrow and mod symbol<\/a> \u2014 an allusion to Vedder\u2019s tribute to the Who on his personal guitar. On the back, the Padres and Mariners logos appear alongside text hand-written by the singer and guitarist: \u201cThe Vedder Cup Established 2025 by Major League Baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"A <\/p>\n

The Vedder Cup, a guitar shown off Monday by Cal Raleigh of the Seattle Mariners, will go each year to the winner of the full-season series between the Mariners and the San Diego Padres.<\/p>\n

(Lindsey Wasson \/ Associated Press)<\/p>\n

It also contains a logo from EB Research Partnership, a nonprofit co-founded by Vedder and his wife, Jill, after a childhood friend\u2019s son was born with the painful skin condition epidermolysis bullosa. The nonprofit funds research on the disease.<\/p>\n

The cup is intended to bring \u201cmeaningful awareness\u201d to the rare disorder, Mariners Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Trevor Gooby said in a statement<\/a> in March, when the longtime rivalry became official.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t wait to see this rivalry series grow and look forward to battling the Mariners for the Vedder Cup,\u201d Padres Chief Executive Erik Greupner added.<\/p>\n

The rivalry, such as it is, arose from forces both real and manufactured, apparently. Vedder has strong ties to both cities, having grown up in San Diego, then moved to Seattle to start Pearl Jam with Stone Gossard and Jeff Ament \u2014 hence, the \u201cVedder\u201d Cup. <\/p>\n

Also, upon the introduction of interleague play in the late \u201990s, MLB looked for \u201cnatural\u201d rivalries between teams like the Padres and Mariners. This year, the league canonized the rivalry, which is said to have begun as geographic, given both teams\u2019 West Coast homes, Reuters reports<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The two teams have met almost annually since 1997. In the informal all-time series, Seattle currently leads 68-63. Additionally, they share a training complex in Peoria, Ariz.<\/p>\n

Some fans are still left with questions as to why the competition has turned official, with one claiming<\/a> on Reddit that \u201cpadres and mariners fans literally give no s\u2014 about each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, they conceded it is \u201clikely the most meaningless and yet kinda fun thing in MLB.\u201d<\/p>\n

The trophy was in the spotlight Monday when the teams met for the fourth time this season. The Mariners notched a 9-6 victory over the Padres, taking the season series after three previous wins in San Diego. The Padres beat the Mariners Tuesday, 7-6, and the final game is Wednesday, but the contest has already been decided. Cal Raleigh, the Mariners\u2019 switch-hitting, homer-hammering catcher, known as \u201cBig Dumper<\/a>,\u201d hoisted and played the trophy in celebration Monday night. <\/p>\n

The name and logo for the cup were first shown off in March, but its final design wasn\u2019t finished until the weeks leading up to the fixture. <\/p>\n

\u201cTypically on a custom build like this it will take us six months or so to source the wood, get everything mapped out ready to go and take our time to vet the process, apply the graphics, do some test runs,\u201d Chase Paul, director of product development for Fender, told the Seattle Times. \u201cOn this we just kind of headed into it in parallel with testing and the production version at the same time, and kind of getting it ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n

In all, it took Fender eight or nine weeks to get the work done, which Paul called a \u201creally incredible effort by the team in the shop.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, Vedder doesn\u2019t want the trophy guitar to sit on a shelf for the next year while it\u2019s in the Mariners\u2019 possession. According to Webb, \u201cHe wants it to be played.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s his attitude with everything. It\u2019s a living, breathing instrument. It sounds great,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

As an added bonus to fans, the league announced it would give away limited-edition Vedder Cup hats during the last 2025 game between the two on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

To no surprise, the exclusive ticket package that included the hats has sold out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Before MLB\u2019s newest trophy was offered up as the prize in a competition between the Seattle Mariners and…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":181708,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[463,15571,1888,3250,102441,1266,102442,8037,15572,102443,1306,5950,1288,62,3007,67,132,68,102444],"class_list":{"0":"post-181707","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-cup","9":"tag-eddie-vedder","10":"tag-fan","11":"tag-march","12":"tag-mariners-logo","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-new-trophy","15":"tag-padres","16":"tag-pearl-jam","17":"tag-rivalry-series","18":"tag-san-diego-padres","19":"tag-season","20":"tag-seattle-mariners","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-team","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedstates","25":"tag-us","26":"tag-vedder-cup"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115104904968863915","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181707","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181707"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181707\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/181708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}