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Saturday, November 17, 2007
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DAILY 11-17-07 MD RE E14
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The Washington Post
R
Inside the Game
THE ASHES URN
VENUS ROSEWATER DISH
BY IAN WALDIE — GETTY IMAGES
This “trophy” actually was a gift and never
was really awarded to the winner of
the Ashes cricket series between
Australia and England
Size: Four inches tall, made of ceramic with a cork
stopper and wood trim.
Value: It reportedly was insured for more than $10
million when it toured Australia last year.
History: Yep, it’s actually an urn, created in response to a Sporting Times obituary for English
cricket after the squad lost to Australia in England
on Aug. 29, 1882. The next year, a group of women
in Melbourne presented the urn to English captain
Ivo Bligh. According to legend, it contains the ashes of cricket equipment used in that match.
Does the winner keep it? No, the fragile urn required restoration in 2004 and rarely leaves its
home at the Marylebone Cricket Club Museum in
London. Cricket Australia has a replica, presented
in 1948. Another, much less interesting trophy
made of Waterford crystal actually goes to the Ashes series winner.
AMERICA’S CUP
BY GARY M. PRIOR — GETTY IMAGES
FLOYD OF ROSEDALE
HANDOUT PHOTO
BY FERNANDO BUSTAMENTE — ASSOCIATED PRESS
Awarded to the ladies’ singles champion
at Wimbledon since 1886
Awarded to the winner of the eponymous
yacht racing series since 1851
Awarded to the winner of the annual IowaMinnesota college football game since 1935
Size: 183⁄4 inches in diameter.
History: This sterling silver trophy with gilded trim
was made in 1864 by Messrs. Elkington and Co. Ltd.
of Birmingham. It is a copy of an electrotype made by
artist Caspar Enderlein, which was a copy of a pewter original from the 1500s that resides in the
Louvre. And yes, the “Venus” part was there long before Ms. Williams won it four times.
Does the winner keep it? No, the Wimbledon Lawn
Tennis Museum does. Winners receive an eight-inch
replica and prize money (roughly $1.4 million in
2007).
Why it’s cool: 1. It’s usually presented by a real duke
and duchess (of Kent, to be specific). 2. The decoration theme is not tennis or sport but mythology. In
the middle is Temperance, the spirit of moderation.
Around the rim is the goddess Minerva with symbols
for the liberal arts: astrology, geometry, arithmetic,
music, rhetoric, dialectic and grammar. That makes
it so much more erudite than, say, a silver football.
Size: 265⁄8 inches tall, made of 134 ounces of Britannia metal, an alloy similar to pewter. A seven-inch
base was added in 1958 to accommodate winners’
names.
Size: 151⁄2 inches high, 21 inches long, 98.3 pounds.
History: The rivalry had been increasingly ugly,
charged with bitterness, threats and even racial tension leading up to the 1935 game in Iowa City. Minnesota Gov. Floyd Olson feared mayhem. Hoping to
lighten the mood, Olson, with much fanfare, bet
Iowa Gov. Clyde Herring a prize hog that Minnesota would win. Herring went along, even mocking
the scrawniness of Minnesota swine. The game
went on without controversy, Minnesota won and
Herring personally delivered a champion Hampshire from Rosedale Farms (dubbed Floyd after Olson) to the Minnesota statehouse. Olson commissioned a trophy in Floyd’s likeness, made of bronze
by St. Paul artist Charles Brioschi, to symbolize
sportsmanship. The pig died of cholera in 1936 and
was buried in a Minnesota field almost exactly halfway between the two schools.
Does the winner keep it? Just until the next year.
The series is 39-32-2 in Minnesota’s favor after
Iowa won on Saturday.
History: The cup was made in London in 1848 by
British silversmith Robert Garrard and was given to
the Royal Yacht Squadron in 1851. The club challenged yachts from the United States to a race
around the Isle of Wight and offered the cup, then
called the 100 Guinea Cup, as the prize. The winner
was the schooner America from the New York Yacht
Club, and thus the trophy soon was renamed the
America’s Cup. The race series began in 1870.
Do the winners keep it? Yes, until they lose it. The
New York Yacht Club had it so long — 132 years —
that they bolted it and its oak display table to the
floor. It had to be removed when an Australian yacht
broke the U.S. chokehold on the series in 1983.
Why it’s cool: The Auld Mug is considered the oldest trophy in sports.
BORG-WARNER TROPHY
THE GREEN JACKET
For the Winner,
One Shiny Memento
By Bonnie Berkowitz | The Washington Post
omorrow afternoon at RFK Stadium, a gaggle of New England
Revolution or Houston Dynamo players will hold aloft a gleaming, Tiffany-made, sterling-silver trophy that dates all the way
to — well, 1999. But lack of history is no reason to disparage
an impressive prize that could someday be a classic. After all, even the
oldest, most revered awards in sports had to start somewhere.
These are among the all-time greatest.
T
BY JAMIE SQUIRE — GETTY IMAGES
ALAN I. ROTHENBERG TROPHY
Awarded to the Major League Soccer champion since 1999
Awarded to the winner of the
Indianapolis 500 since 1936
Size: 5 feet 43⁄4, 110 pounds with base, made of sterling
silver. With a replacement base added in 2004, it can
accommodate winners through the 2034 race.
Value: More than $1 million.
History: The trophy was crafted by Spaulding-Gorham of Chicago and named for auto parts giant BorgWarner (now BorgWarner), replacing a previous
award. The first recipient, three-time winner Louis
Meyer, also was the first to drink milk in Victory Lane.
Does the winner keep it? No, it stays at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame Museum. Each winner gets a replica called the “Baby Borg.”
Why it’s cool: 1. On it are sculpted faces of each winner. 2. The flagman on the top is naked. 3. The cup’s
hollow body reportedly can hold 48 cans of beer.
Good story: Protocol dating from 1911 dictates that
the trophy is placed on the back of the winning car behind the driver. In 1969, it was accidentally placed on
Mario Andretti’s still-hot engine and had to be removed with a fireman’s asbestos gloves.
OLYMPIC GOLD MEDAL
Awarded to the winner
of the Masters since 1949
Size/Value: 24 inches tall, 20.2 pounds, $38,000
History: This is the second incarnation of the Rothenberg trophy,
named after the first chairman of MLS. It is larger, cleaner in design
and more dramatic than the round one awarded to D.C. United for
winning the inaugural MLS championship in 1996.
Does the winner keep it? Yes. A new one is made each year, and
names of team players and staff are engraved on the base. A
permanent version called the Commissioner’s Cup Trophy
has the names of all MLS Cup champions on it and is kept
at league headquarters in New York.
Why it’s cool: 1. The fluted stand rising from the base has
11 silver strips per side, representing the starters on a
team and the teamwork it takes to win. 2. The soccer
ball on top is regulation size.
Size: The jacket presented is off the rack, then a new
one is tailored to the winner later. A multiple winner
gets only one unless his size changes drastically.
Cost: Estimates range from $250 to $400.
What they’re made of: Roughly 21⁄2 yards of tropicalweight wool from Dublin, Ga. Hamilton Tailoring of
Cincinnati has made them since 1967.
History: The original green gabardine coats were purchased in bulk in 1937 so that club members would be
easily distinguishable from tournament visitors. But
members hated the heavy material, so they were soon
replaced by custom-made lightweight jackets ordered
through the pro shop. In 1949, Sam Snead was awarded the first Masters champion jacket, and all previous
winners got them retroactively.
Does the winner keep it? For a year. Then it is stored
at Augusta National. The winner also gets a trophy, a
medal and money ($1.3 million in 2007).
Why it’s cool: Rarely are people so thrilled to wear
something so unattractive.
Sources: BBC Sport; Marylebone Cricket Club; Wimbledon.com; AmericasCup.com;
AmericaOne.com; International Herald Tribune; Minnesota Public Radio; University of Iowa
sports information; GopherSports.com; Indy500.com; IndyCar.com; Indianapolis Motor
Speedway; BorgWarner; Major League Soccer; TheMasters.com; PGATour.com; Golf Online;
Olympic Museum and Studies Centre, Lausanne, Switzerland; Beijing 2008 Organizing
Committee; NHL.com; Hockey Hall of Fame and Museum; The Boston Globe Magazine;
“Boston: A Century of Running” by Hal Higdon; MLB.com; St. Louis Post-Dispatch;
SportsCollectorsDaily.com; researcher Freddy Borowski of the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
THE STANLEY CUP
BY ROBERT LABERGE — GETTY IMAGES
HANDOUT
Awarded to Olympic champions since 1904
Awarded to a hockey champion since 1893
Size: The gold medals awarded next summer in Beijing will be 23⁄4 inches in diameter and about 1⁄4-inch
thick. Medals usually weigh four to eight ounces.
Design: Host countries design medals but must follow
strict IOC standards. For instance, each gold medal
must be coated with at least six grams of pure gold.
Front design has been standardized since 1928 but occasionally is revised, most recently in 2004. It shows
the winged goddess of victory entering the Greek stadium. The 2008 gold medals were designed by a Beijing fine arts academy and are made of gold and white
jade, China’s “royal gem,” to symbolize nobility and
virtue. The design was inspired by an ancient Chinese
jade piece called bi.
History: Winners of the first modern Games in 1896
received an olive wreath and a silver medal; the gold,
silver and bronze system didn’t come about until
1904. Since Lake Placid in 1932, medals are awarded
on a three-tiered podium, and the champion’s flag is
raised and national anthem played, producing tears
more reliably than any other ceremony in sports.
Size: 351⁄4 inches tall, 34.5 pounds. The original cup,
which had no bases, was 7.28 inches tall.
History: Lord Stanley of Preston, the governor general of Canada, bought the British-made silver cup for
about $50 in 1892 to award it to Canada’s amateur
hockey champion. It became an NHL award in 1926.
Who is on it? Engraved names of winning players,
coaches, management and staff. Every 13 years,
when a the last tier fills up, a new one is added to the
bottom and an old one joins the original cup (retired
in 1969) at the Hockey Hall of Fame in Toronto.
Why it’s cool: Each team member gets it for a day, so
it has been to places as diverse as Finland, Japan and
the Bahamas. It has climbed Mount Elbert in Colorado and entered the Kremlin, the White House and
an igloo in Nunavut. At least one baby has been christened in it.
Good story: The 1906 Montreal Wanderers forgot
the cup at the home of a photographer, whose mother planted flowers in it and kept it for months until
Wanderers’ brass realized it was missing.
BY ANDREW REDINGTON — GETTY IMAGES
OLIVE WREATH
LIDIYA GRIGORYEVA, 2007 WINNER; PHOTO BY MICHAEL DWYER — ASSOCIATED PRESS
WORLD SERIES RING
VICTOR BALDIZON / GETTY IMAGES
Placed on the heads of Boston Marathon
winners since 1897
Awarded to Major League Baseball
champions since 1922
Why it’s cool: Each year, the Greek government
supplies race organizers with olive branches cut
from groves in Marathon, the scene of the battle
from which original marathoner Pheidippides supposedly ran to announce the Athenian victory (before dropping dead) in 490 B.C.
Size: Normal-size for decades (think your high school
class ring), some are now nearly as big as golf balls.
Cost to make: Each team designs and buys its own, so
costs vary. The most expensive, according to expert
Jerry McNeal, was the $46,000 behemoth created for
the 2003 Marlins, each featuring 229 diamonds.
History: Early World Series winners received watch
fobs, diamond stickpins and other trinkets. The 1922
Giants, after beating the Yankees, were the first team
to get rings. Players loved them, and since 1931, all
champions have received rings.
Most recent: The 2006 Cardinals commissioned 400
rings, each containing 50 diamonds and 32 customcut rubies from Myanmar. Each ring weighs about 2.5
ounces.
What about the trophy? The trophy with 30 pennants
surrounding a baseball only has been around since
1967. Tiffany & Co. makes a new one every year for
the winning team (same with the NFL’s Vince Lombardi Trophy and the NBA’s Larry O’Brien Trophy).
What else do the winners get? $100,000 each in
2007, a trophy and, of course, a finisher’s medal.
Good story: Winners used to be crowned as they finished rather than in a postrace ceremony, and politicians usually had the potentially unnerving honor
of attempting to place the wreath on a moving target. This proved particularly problematic in 1955,
when Mayor John Hynes could not catch Hideo Hamamura of Japan as he crossed the finish line. The
next day, newspapers all over the world ran a photo
of Hynes, trailing woefully, holding the wreath in
the air and yelling at a euphoric, oblivious Hamamura. The shot earned Boston Herald photographer
Russ Adams a Pulitzer Prize nomination.
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