Dodgers players and team personnel pose for a team photo with their World Series rings during a pregame ceremony at Dodger Stadium on Friday night. (Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)
No detail, or diamond, was spared.
Modern-day championship rings, Dodgers chief marketing officer Lon Rosen joked, essentially have “turned into wearable sculpture pieces.” And after a month of intricate design planning this offseason, the Dodgers’ 2024 World Series rings are no exception.
Presented to players and coaches on the field before Friday night’s game against the Detroit Tigers at Dodger Stadium, the latest championship rings in Dodgers history are easily the most grandiose yet, each made of 14-karat gold, more than 300 diamonds and 120 sapphires.
At the top, the LA logo is spelled out in blue gems, with a bed of oval diamonds as the backdrop. Around the edge lies a circle of 34 sapphires honoring late Dodgers pitcher Fernando Valenzuela, who died during the World Series run. On either side eight more diamonds were included to recognize the organization’s eight championships. On the top and bottom, “World Champions” is spelled out in more bling.
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Down the side of the ring, there are personalized touches, with each team member’s last name and number displayed around a hexagon shape inspired by Dodger Stadium’s unique scoreboards. Inscribed on the inner half are each recipient’s signature and logos of the three teams the Dodgers defeated on their way to the crown.
Beneath the lift-off top of the ring, more Easter eggs abound — most notably, cut-up pieces of the bases from the team’s title-clinching Game 5 win at Yankee Stadium, as well as a bedazzled recreation of Dodger Stadium with the Commissioner’s Trophy in the middle.
One final touch resides on the bottom of the ring: five diamonds to signify the five-run deficit the Dodgers overcame in the clincher.
“We had input from our ownership, from Stan [Kasten, team president], from me,” Rosen said. “Looked at it, worked with designers, and our owner made the final decision, which we all actually agreed on.”
“It’s very cool,” Rosen added shortly before Friday’s ceremony. “The guys are gonna be really excited.”
Even before the rings were presented, anticipation was high in the clubhouse.
“This is the final piece,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Just to have the fans here to enjoy this with us, the players, to kind of close the book on 2024, and still staying focused on the baseball game tonight, there’s just a lot of excitement. Probably more than I can ever recall, with the Dodger fan base. Our players feel that.”
In a fitting twist, the rings were presented on the same night a key piece of that team, L.A. native Jack Flaherty, pitched against the club as a member of the Tigers — who re-signed him in the offseason after trading him to the Dodgers at last year’s deadline.
“He was somewhat of a savior, to be honest with you,” Roberts said of Flaherty, who will get his ring Saturday. “He was the right person at the right time for our club. And I’m happy that he got family and friends who got to see him in a Dodger uniform, get a championship ring.”
“Now,” Roberts added with a laugh, “we can go beat him up today, and give him his ring tomorrow.”
Like most of his players, Roberts isn’t one to wear World Series hardware often. The rings from his previous two championships — as Dodgers manager in 2020 and as a player with the Boston Red Sox in 2004 — reside inside a safe in his garage.
But, the manager conceded, he was excited to get to try on this piece during Friday’s ceremony.
“I hope it fits,” he joked. “If you see me fiddling with it, and it ends up on my pinky, we’ll have big problems.”
Then again, championship rings now are less for wearing anyway. As Rosen noted, they have transformed more into pieces of art. And after the franchise’s first full-season title in more than three decades, the Dodgers didn’t waste an inch of this diamond-studded design, infusing as much symbolism from their triumphant season as they could.
Hernández on the mend
Friday’s ceremony was a can’t-miss occasion for Kiké Hernández.
Though the veteran utility man played a key role in the Dodgers’ 2020 title, he missed out on all the season-opening ceremonies the next year after signing with the Boston Red Sox that winter.
Then, on Thursday, Hernández was absent again during the World Series banner raising, unable to make it to the ballpark for the home opener while battling a stomach illness.
On Friday, however, Hernández was feeling strong enough to return to the ballpark. He wasn’t in the starting lineup, and it remains unclear when he will be back on the field. But Roberts said Hernández was “feeling much better” and seemed hopeful his illness would cause only a short-term absence.
“He is not going to be here at the ballpark early on, doing work, just make sure that he kind of stays strong and builds up,” Roberts said.
“But,” he added, “he wasn’t going to miss this one.”
Pitching injury updates
Hours before Friday’s game, injured pitchers Tony Gonsolin (back) and Evan Phillips (shoulder) faced hitters in live batting practice. Reliever Michael Kopech (shoulder) threw a flat-ground session in the outfield. And Clayton Kershaw (offseason toe and knee surgeries) told reporters he would face hitters for the first time this year Saturday.
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Gonsolin, who tweaked his back while doing squats in the gym near the end of spring training, and Phillips, who had a platelet-rich plasma injection this offseason to address a partially torn rotator cuff he suffered during the playoffs, are the closest of the group to returning to the active roster.
Phillips likely will throw another live BP before beginning a rehab assignment, keeping him on track to rejoin the team in the next couple of weeks. Gonsolin’s next step will be to throw three innings in either another simulated setting or a minor-league rehab assignment as he works toward a long-awaited return from his 2023 Tommy John surgery.
“To have something like that, non-baseball-related, really sucked, honestly,” said Gonsolin, whose last appearance in the majors came in August 2023. “I don’t really have any other words for it. But again, it’s a minor setback, and I’ll try to take this time to build back up and get into an even better position.”
The timeline for Kopech’s and Kershaw’s returns are less clear, but Kershaw said he remains hopeful of being ready right around the time his 60-day injured list stint is up near the end of May.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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