Before MLB’s 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.
The custom Fender Telecaster guitar, named the Vedder Cup, is said to have been played by its namesake for “about an hour” before it was shipped off to T-Mobile Park in Seattle.
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“He gave it a good run through,” George Webb, Pearl Jam’s equipment manager, told the Seattle Times on Monday. “He always likes to feel like he puts a little energy, you know, spiritual energy, into an instrument. Not just hand off something that’s brand-new, never-touched kind of thing. So yeah, jammed on it for about an hour. Had a good time.”
The trophy features many nods from the 60-year-old musician, including a hand-drawn “cresting wave” illustration and an arrow and mod symbol — an allusion to Vedder’s 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: “The Vedder Cup Established 2025 by Major League Baseball.”
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. (Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
It also contains a logo from EB Research Partnership, a nonprofit co-founded by Vedder and his wife, Jill, after a childhood friend’s son was born with the painful skin condition epidermolysis bullosa. The nonprofit funds research on the disease.
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The cup is intended to bring “meaningful awareness” to the rare disorder, Mariners Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer Trevor Gooby said in a statement in March, when the longtime rivalry became official.
“We can’t wait to see this rivalry series grow and look forward to battling the Mariners for the Vedder Cup,” Padres Chief Executive Erik Greupner added.
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 — hence, the “Vedder” Cup.
Also, upon the introduction of interleague play in the late ’90s, MLB looked for “natural” 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’ West Coast homes, Reuters reports.
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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.
Some fans are still left with questions as to why the competition has turned official, with one claiming on Reddit that “padres and mariners fans literally give no s— about each other.”
Still, they conceded it is “likely the most meaningless and yet kinda fun thing in MLB.”
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’ switch-hitting, homer-hammering catcher, known as “Big Dumper,” hoisted and played the trophy in celebration Monday night.
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The name and logo for the cup were first shown off in March, but its final design wasn’t finished until the weeks leading up to the fixture.
“Typically 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,” Chase Paul, director of product development for Fender, told the Seattle Times. “On 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.”
In all, it took Fender eight or nine weeks to get the work done, which Paul called a “really incredible effort by the team in the shop.”
Naturally, Vedder doesn’t want the trophy guitar to sit on a shelf for the next year while it’s in the Mariners’ possession. According to Webb, “He wants it to be played.”
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“That’s his attitude with everything. It’s a living, breathing instrument. It sounds great,” he added.
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.
To no surprise, the exclusive ticket package that included the hats has sold out.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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