In the worldwide realm of Chicago Cubs fans the National League Baseball club could have traveled virtually anywhere and drawn a substantial crowd to see their shiny new World Series Commissioner’s Trophy. Reality is, however, that the famous prize will visit less than a dozen total cities on its World Series Champions Tour and one of those is in St. Joseph, Michigan.
St. Joseph is, of course, the home of the self-proclaimed Biggest Cubs Fan in the World — Congressman Fred Upton, and he has a very special relationship with the team and the entire Cubs organization. In fact, he tells me that the Cubs reached out to him last month to tell him they would bring the World Championship trophy to both St. Joseph and Kalamazoo on the tour and asked him where and when would be best.
Because February 20th is President’s Day, a federal holiday, and no congressional votes will be conducted, Fred was successful in encouraging the Cubs to make the road trip to Michigan that day so he could be on hand, himself. He teed up several locations in each community as potential host sites for the famous trophy, and they told him they would handle the logistics and get back to him regarding which sites will earn the honor. Fred expects to hear from the Major League Baseball team officials within another day or two.
Meanwhile, news of the trophy’s impending visit has skyrocketed throughout the entire region, with folks sharing the new on social media, but, of course nobody knows exactly where the trophy will be that day, or at what specific time and for how long. Those details are being hammered out.
Much like the Alfred E. Bourne Trophy from the Senior PGA Championship which many local sports fans are familiar with (and have posed next to), the trophy will be proudly displayed on a pedestal with a Hollywood-style backdrop sharing the Cubs Championship logo and the State Farm Insurance logo as underwriters of the Trophy Tour which officially started on Friday, December 9th at the official Cubs Team Store on N. Michigan Avenue in downtown Chicago. Since then it has traveled to Chicago City Hall, the State Farm Chicago Legends event, Naperville City Hall and yesterday was in both Freeport, Illinois and Rockford, Illinois at a hockey game.
Today the Trophy Tour hit the Prairie Center for the Arts in Schaumburg, Illinois just north of Chicago and next week it spends three days at the annual Cubs Convention.
A week from this Saturday, regional fans can head to the South Bend Cubs’ Performance Center in South Bend and later that day to the Notre Dame Basketball Purcell Pavilion on the Campus of Notre Dame University — that’s Saturday, January 21st.
The Trophy Tour heads fro Lincoln, Nebraska on Friday, February 10th and then ten days later makes the trip to St. Joseph and Kalamazoo both in the same day. After that the tour heads south to the Cactus League for Spring Training, arrives in the Illinois State Capitol the first week of March and finally to the Cubs home opener at Wrigley Field on Monday, April 10th.
The World Series Trophy, also known as the Commissioner’s Trophy, was originally created by Major League Baseball in 1967, however Tiffany & Company was commissioned in 2000 to redesign it. The 24-inch trophy features 30 flags, one for each MLB team, with latitude & longitude lines symbolizing the world, and 24-karat vermeil stitches representing those on a baseball.
The sterling silver trophy weighs approximately 20-pounds and stands 2-feet high with a diameter of 11 inches.
The photo accompanying this story on Moody on the Market.com was shared with me by Twitter user Brian who is shown on the right, as he posed Sunday at the Masonic Temple in Freeport, Illinois with the trophy. It depicts the manner in which the trophy will be displayed when it comes to St. Joseph next month.
Stay tuned for further details on exactly where and when the World Series Trophy will be in St. Joe on President’s Day, Monday, February 20th.
