The Nationals Squeezed a Lot of Symbolism (and a Spelling Error) On the World Series Ring
Since the tradition of World Series rings began, these pieces of jewelry have significantly grown in worth. Each year’s winning MLB team seems to receive a more ornate and valuable ring design than the previous year’s champion. The Nationals’ ring for winning the 2019 World Series is no exception. Its design features a lot of symbolism related to the season — and a grammatical error.
The Nationals’ championship season
Despite losing slugger Bryce Harper to free agency last offseason, the Nationals finished the season 93-69 — after a disappointing 47-42 first half — to earn one of the National League’s wild cards. They beat the Brewers in the Wild Card Game, then needed five games to beat the Dodgers in a tough Division Series.
This got them to the NLCS, where they swept the Cardinals in four games to advance to the World Series to take on the Astros. The teams went the distance in the series but the Nationals won Game 7 in Houston — where all four of their wins took place — to win the franchise’s first-ever World Series.
The Nationals’ World Series ring
When a virtual ring ceremony was scuttled by the players, the Nationals simply revealed the design of their championship rings, which were designed by Jostens. Here are some of the highlights, according to ESPN:
- The cursive “W” logo features 30 rubies, which represent the number of runs the team scored in the four World Series wins; there are also 12 rubies on each end, to commemorate the number of postseason wins.
- Thirty-two sapphires surround the logo; that number represents the total of the Nationals’ walk-off wins, shutouts, longest winning streak, and postseason rounds won.
- The ring contains an additional 108 diamonds, for the 105 victories — regular season and postseason — along with one for the World Series championship and two giving a nod to the franchise’s history as the Montreal Expos and the Nationals.
- The ring features some Washington, D.C., landmarks and the Roman numerals MMVI to indicate the year that the Lerner family bought the team.
- The ring’s interior has a symbol of a shark holding the Commissioner’s Trophy, to honor the Baby Shark song that became a key element of the team.
There is one element to the ring that is subpar. Business Insider points out that the ring contains the team’s motto from last season — Gp 1-0 every day — but the ring as “every day” misspelled as one word instead of two.
Other extravagant championship rings
In all, the Nats’ rings have 170 diamonds, 55 rubies, and 32 sapphires. Let’s compare this to the Patriots’ most recent championship ring from Super Bowl LIII. Super Bowl rings are typically the most extravagant of any of the sports leagues’ winning jewelry. Each ring is 9.85 carats and contains an average of 422 diamonds — 39 surrounding the team logo — and 20 blue sapphires.
How about comparing the Nationals’ ring to the Red Sox jewelry from 2018? This exquisite piece has a total of 185 stones. These include 128 diamonds, an additional 14 princess-cut diamonds, 22 blue sapphires, and 21 genuine rubies. Like Washington’s ring, both Boston teams’ recent bling features the team motto from the championship season. (These two teams have the mottos spelled correctly, however.)
MLB’s rings may pale in comparison to New England’s Super Bowl rings. But all championship rings are incredible pieces of jewelry worth thousands. Anyone would be thrilled to own them.
