2004 World Series Trophy Tour: Touch ’Em All Across Red Sox Nation

David Ortiz holds the 2004 World Series trophy during the victory parade in Boston. (Courtesy of Bill Nowlin)

 

It’s not unusual for a championship team to show off some hard-won hardware. The Stanley Cup of the National Hockey League famously travels from player to player in the offseason, making public appearances along the way. Championship trophies often make the rounds of the local statehouse or city hall, and may even be displayed in a victory parade.

That the 2004 World Series trophy would tour at least some places was a given, but Red Sox team President Larry Lucchino had prior experience in the power of a trophy to capture hearts and minds. He had overseen the tour of the National League trophy around San Diego after the Padres’ pennant win in 1998. Until 2017, the National League’s Warren C. Giles Trophy was passed from one winning team to the next like the Stanley Cup. At the time the Padres were politicking for a new ballpark, and Lucchino saw firsthand the impact of letting people actually touch the hallowed object. The stadium referendum passed and a seed was planted in Lucchino’s mind.1

An epic, historic championship run – like the one had by the Red Sox in 2004 – required an epic, historic trophy tour. The pledge to take the trophy to all 351 cities and towns in the commonwealth of Massachusetts was announced by Lucchino – in what he later termed a fit of “irrational exuberance”2 – after the trophy had already made many appearances, including onstage at a Tim McGraw concert in Connecticut, and even a stop in the Dominican Republic for a “social visit”3 with star pitcher Pedro Martínez (who was then about to begin contract negotiations with the team) and at the new Red Sox baseball academy in El Toro. The trophy made trips to Atlanta, to the headquarters of Red Sox sponsors Delta and Coca-Cola, and to some outposts of Red Sox Nation in other parts of the country, like Fat Face Fenner’s Fishack in Hermosa Beach, California.4 But as the anecdotes continued to roll in from every appearance about staunch New Englanders who had waited their whole lives for a championship breaking down in tears upon seeing – and sometimes hugging – the trophy, it seemed only fair to give as many of them as possible a chance to see it in person. Thus, the “Mass 351” challenge was on.

Red Sox front-office employee Colin Burch was given the task of booking the logistics of the tour, and it quickly became clear that he was going to need to schedule stops every day, often as many as six in a day, if the Red Sox didn’t want the tour to take another 86 years. The tour was also going to need financial support to cover the cost of transporting the trophy and accompanying personnel. The Mass State Lottery was brought on as tour sponsor, reportedly pledging $250,000 toward transportation, publicity, and security.5 “Like the Red Sox, the Massachusetts State Lottery is synonymous with success,” read the announcement from Massachusetts State Treasurer Tim Cahill about the lottery partnership. “We have one of the most successful lotteries in the country, and … [t]he more successful the Lottery, the more money that can be returned to cities and towns across Massachusetts. We feel it makes perfect sense for us to hit the road with the Red Sox as they begin their World Series Trophy Tour across the state.”

Cahill’s measured announcement belied his personal excitement. “In the two years I’ve been treasurer, there’s been a lot of exciting things,” he told the Associated Press. “[B]but I haven’t been nervous except in the presence of this trophy.”6

The Commissioner’s Trophy itself carried a $15,000 price tag at the time, but of course the significance is priceless.7 Each year, Tiffany & Co. makes a new trophy from sterling silver, which stands about 2½ feet high, and reportedly weighs 30 to 35 pounds.8 For the tour, a rolling road case that looked as if it belonged with Aerosmith was custom-built for the hardware, which traveled to many tour stops in a dedicated vehicle. Fully decked out with the Red Sox and Mass Lottery logos and emblazoned with the words “World Championship Trophy Tour,” the snazzy sport utility vehicle was a Volvo – a Red Sox sponsor.9

The trophy also traveled by plane, ferry, helicopter, and train. “At one point we took it to New York City,” longtime Red Sox front-office official Dr. Charles Steinberg gleefully recounted, “to a Red Sox bar down there called ‘The Riv,’ and we took it by Amtrak. We put the trophy into the luggage area at the back of the car and the case took up basically the whole area. A conductor came along and barked, ‘You can’t put that thing here!’ But then [he] recognized us and all of a sudden he goes, ‘Is that what I think it is? Can I see it?’”10 The conductor soon had a photo with the trophy, as did everyone else on that train.

The trophy traveled with people who were dubbed “Fenway Ambassadors, ‘who were very occasionally Red Sox players, leading to incidents such as the time when Johnny Damon handed the trophy to a group of fans to pass around at a Patriots football game, resulting in two of the flagpoles being damaged.11 Former Red Sox such as Jerry Remy, Luis Tiant, and others also made some appearances.12 But the trophy itself, not players, was the draw. “It’s a very visible representation of the fact that we won the Series, that’s why,” Red Sox vice president Chuck Steedman told the Globe. “[O]ur players have come and gone over the years. This is the commissioner’s trophy. It’s here for keeps.”13

The trophy’s usual travel companions were Burch, Steedman, and a security guard or two, sometimes including Remy’s son Jared.14 As the Globe reported, “Steedman kept it at his house one night and recalled, ‘My wife slept on the couch and I had the trophy.’”15

Another frequent member of the entourage was Joe McDermott, a supervisor of Red Sox security. “At that point, the trophy was like seeing God. It was something they never thought they would see in their lifetimes,” he said. “Every place we visited, we’d be seeing more than a thousand people in the course of a couple of hours. And a large number of them had pictures of loved ones who had died and had never seen it.”16 One of the oldsters who had her chance to touch the trophy was Rose Bolger, 100, who was honored alongside the trophy in Fall River, Massachusetts, with five generations of her family in attendance.17

By December 4, 2004, the day of a victory rally in Fort Myers, the Red Sox longtime spring-training home, the trophy had already made over 100 stops with “about 400 more scheduled.”18 While getting to all 351 towns in Massachusetts was a priority, many sites throughout the other five New England states also petitioned for a visit. A minority owner of the Red Sox, Les Otten, arranged for the trophy to stop in Maine at his Phoenix House and Well restaurant, near the Sunday River ski resort. “The place was so packed,” the Globe reported Otten as saying, “they had to pass the trophy in through a window.”19

Of course, with so much handling, there were many opportunities for damage. As when a flying full beer can struck it during the “Rolling Rally” victory parade, the damaged trophy had to be sent back to its maker – in New York City – for refurbishment and repair.20 In a post on the Boston Dirt Dogs website in 2004, a Tiffany’s employee wrote to lay to rest the idea that there must have been multiple copies of the trophy making the rounds in order to get to all 351 stops. The trophy was singular, he attested, adding, “We are a New York based company filled with Yankee fans. So it must have killed the guys who worked on it that the Sox won.”21

By January the trophy had gained a sidekick: the ball from the final out of the 2004 World Series. After making the putout, first baseman Doug Mientkiewicz had held onto the ball and asserted ownership, a claim the Sox disputed. Both parties agreed to set aside the question of ownership to let the ball join the festivities.22

Some school districts bused their students to see the trophy, and many local politicians took the opportunity to do some glad-handing as well. As representative Daniel E. Bosley (D-North Adams) said when he accompanied the tour around North County in the farthest western reaches of Massachusetts, “People here identify so much with this team, and the Red Sox haven’t forgotten us. They’ve let it be known it isn’t just their trophy – it belongs to everyone.”23

The tour included stops in towns like Aquinnah (population 439), Nahant, Phillipston, Petersham, and Mattapoisett.24 Schools, senior centers, town halls, public libraries, and hospitals were frequent destinations, as well as college campuses, like a February 2005 visit to a college basketball game at UMass Amherst on February 23, 2005. “As part of the celebration, all fans are encouraged to wear Red Sox apparel,” read the announcement from UMass Athletics. “One lucky fan wearing Red Sox gear will be selected randomly to have their photo taken with the World Series Trophy at halftime.”25 The town of Holliston – the site of the Mudville neighborhood that some believe inspired the poem “Casey at the Bat” – hoped to have the trophy visit for the inauguration of its newly lighted baseball fields, but had to settle for the local high school since the lights wouldn’t be installed until after the tour’s end.26 At the time of the Holliston event, 329 out of 351 towns had been visited, not counting additional stops outside New England, like the Pentagon and Walter Reed Medical Center.27

The tour’s final stop came midway through the 2005 season, on June 25, in the tiny town of Gosnold, with its numerologically resonant 86 residents. Gosnold comprises nine small islands southwest of Falmouth on Cape Cod, with the tour touching down on Cuttyhunk Island, described by the Globe as “a breezy island where the innkeeper is also the police chief, and [which] boasts a healthy population of deer, coyote, and rabbit, but if you want a gin and tonic, you better bring your own, and if you want pizza, you best know which unmarked, weathered cottage sells slices out of the basement.”28 The trophy traveled there by helicopter with Larry Lucchino handling the hardware himself. When asked before takeoff to comment on the trophy tour, he quipped, “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”29

Gosnold might have been the official last stop of the Mass 351, but it was far from the final appearance for the 2004 trophy. With three more trophies since added to the collection – in 2007, 2013, and 2018 – all four continue to make public appearances, and Colin Burch, the Red Sox vice president of marketing and broadcasting, is still involved with arranging their appearances. “Any time we win, we want to celebrate with as many fans as possible,” Burch told the Improper Bostonian. “In 2004, when we went around, I’m not sure there was a dry eye. And you still see a similar joy in 2007, 2013, and 2018. There’s an intergenerational aspect to baseball, and I think that spirit lives among the four trophies in a unique way.”30

CECILIA M. TAN has been writing about baseball since her fifth-grade book report on The Reggie Jackson Story. She has written for Baseball Prospectus, Yankees Magazine, Gotham Baseball, and The National Pastime. She became publications director for SABR in 2011, and has edited the Baseball Research Journal ever since. She also played women’s baseball from 2000 to 2007, mostly with the Pawtucket Slaterettes.

 

Notes

1 Personal interview, Dr. Charles Steinberg, September 4, 2023, via Zoom.

2 Karen Testa, “Sox Trophy to Tour,” Associated Press/South Coast Today, January 4, 2005. This story appeared on Page C1 of the New Bedford Standard-Times on January 5, 2005.

3 Joseph P. Kahn, “Circling the Bases: World Series Trophy Goes on Odyssey to Touch ’Em All in Red Sox Nation,” Boston Globe, December 9, 2004. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/circling-bases-world-series-trophy-goes-on/docview/404930985/se-2.

4 Kahn, “Circling the Bases.”

5 “Red Sox, Massachusetts Lottery Join Forces in ‘Trophy Tour,’” Boston Business Journal, January 4, 2005. https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2005/01/03/daily22.html.

6 Testa, “Sox Trophy to Tour.”

7 “Red Sox World Series Trophy Tour,” June 27, 2005. https://bostonspastime.com/trophy.html.

8 Meredith Goldstein, “Weight? 35 lbs. Value? $15,000. Peek? Priceless,” Boston Globe, January 30, 2005. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/weight-35-lbs-value-15-000-peek-priceless/docview/404936056/se-2.

9 “Volvo Signs Red Sox Sponsorship Deal,” Boston Business Journal, July 11, 2002. https://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2002/07/08/daily32.html.

10 Personal interview, Dr. Charles Steinberg, September 4, 2023, via Zoom.

11 Dan Shaughnessy, “On This Night, the Star,” Boston Globe, January 14, 2005. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/on-this-night-star/docview/404940821/se-2.

12 Glenn Drohan, “Thousands Throng Red Sox Trophy Tour,” iBerkshires.com, February 2, 2005. https://www.iberkshires.com/story/16685/Thousands-throng-Red-Sox-trophy-tour.html.

13 Kahn, “Circling the Bases.”

14 Jared Remy, son of beloved Sox icon Jerry Remy, was ordered by a lenient judge to seek gainful employment after a domestic violence arrest, and had taken a position with the Red Sox in 2004. Eric Hoskowitz, “For Jared Remy, Leniency Was the Rule Until One Lethal Night,” Boston Globe, March 23, 2014.

15 Dan Shaughnessy, “On This Night, the Star.” 

16 Matt Martinelli, “Trophy Life: An Inside Look at the Red Sox Trophy Tour,” The Improper Bostonian, March 22, 2019. https://www.improper.com/life-style/trophy-life/.

17 Beth Krudys, “The World Series Trophy Tour: Well Worth the Wait,” Red Sox Magazine: First Edition 2005: 63.

18 Patrick Whittle, “Victory Tour Hits Florida,” Boston Globe, December 7, 2004. E7. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/victory-tour-hits-florida/docview/404931472/se-2.

19 Marty Basch, “Snowmaking Heats Up; Mother Nature Adds Her 2 Cents,” Boston Globe, December 23, 2004. Accessed August 25, 2023: https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/snowmaking-heats-up-mother-nature-adds-her-2/docview/404937235/se-2.

20 “A beer can thrown by excited Red Sox fans during the team’s World Series celebration in Boston slammed into some of the flags on the World Series trophy.” The report states that it is a “tradition” in Boston to throw full cans of beer to the players in the parade, but that this practice is dangerous to players as well as the trophy. “Red Sox Fans Damage World Series Trophy,” ABC News/Good Morning America, November 1, 2018. https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/.

21 Kahn, “Circling the Bases.”

22 Gordon Edes, “Ball Will Make Rounds; Mientkiewicz, Sox Come to Agreement,” Boston Globe, January 29, 2005.

23 Drohan, “Thousands Throng Red Sox Trophy Tour.”

24 Tom Trainque, “Red Sox Trophy Comes to Narragansett,” Gardner (Massachusetts) News, January 18, 2005. https://www.thegardnernews.com/story/news/2005/01/19/red-sox-trophy-comes-to/11282958007/; Beth David, “Red Sox Trophy Will Visit Thursday,” New Bedford Standard-Times, May 2, 2005: A9.  https://www.southcoasttoday.com/story/news/2005/05/02/red-sox-trophy-will-visit/50345894007/; “Red Sox Nation Alert: World Series Trophy Pays Visit,” Vineyard Gazette, June 9, 2005. https://vineyardgazette.com/news/2005/06/10/red-sox-nation-alert-world-series-trophy-pays-visit.

25 “RED SOX APPRECIATION DAY: Come Out to See the World Series Trophy on Feb. 23 at Mullins,” February 10, 2005, UMassAthletics.com. https://umassathletics.com/news/2005/2/10/RED_SOX_APPRECIATION_DAY_Come_Out_To_See_The_World_Series_Trophy_On_Feb_23_At_Mullins.

26 Emily Shartin, “Tour Nearing End,” Boston Globe, June 5, 2005. Accessed October 14, 2023: https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/tiffanys-tribute-red-sox-nearing-end-road-trip/docview/404957159/se-2?accountid=9675.

27 “Red Sox World Series Trophy Visits Pentagon,” Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, DVIDSHub.net, January 6, 2005. https://www.dvidshub.net/image/2969/red-sox-world-series-trophy-visits-pentagon.

28 Jackie MacMullan, “Guest Took Years to Arrive/Guest Makes Trip,” Boston Globe, June 25, 2005. https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/guest-took-years-arrive-makes-trip/docview/404962491/se-2.

29 MacMullan, “Guest Took Years to Arrive.”

30 Martinelli, “Trophy Life.”