World Series rings: Do players get them if they were on team for only a short amount of time?
Taylor Trammell of the Yankees looks on before a game against the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium on April 19. Credit: Getty Images/New York Yankees
Duke Ellis. Yoendrys Gomez. Kevin Smith. Clayton Andrews and Clayton Beeter. Taylor Trammell.
Those players are among a group who appeared in at least one game for the 2024 Yankees.
A similar list for the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Yankees’ foe in the World Series, includes a familiar name:
Taylor Trammell.
Trammell, a 27-year-old outfielder, played in five games for the Dodgers in early April and five for the Yankees from April 20-May 3.
That means he could end up with a World Series ring no matter which team ends up winning the Fall Classic.
It’s not guaranteed, because the final decision as to whether bit players are awarded World Series rings rests with the front office and owner of the winning team.
And these rings aren’t cheap — the 2023 Texas Rangers gave out finger candy valued at $75,000 each after taking home the World Series trophy.
“It can be a tricky thing,” former Mets pitcher Ed Lynch — who was awarded a ring by the Mets after appearing in one game for the 1986 World Series championship club — told Newsday on Sunday in a telephone interview.
“You hear all the time, ‘He’s on the team. He’s getting a ring.’ But it’s not necessarily true. It’s up to the owner. Especially now, when these rings have become like hood ornaments. My ring looks like a high school graduation ring compared to some of the rings.”
The last time the Yankees won the World Series, in 2009 for manager Joe Girardi, rings were given out to short-timers such as current Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash, who played in 10 games for the Yankees that season.
“It’s neat,” Cash told Newsday in 2015.
Twice as nice: It was Cash’s second World Series ring — he got one from the 2007 Red Sox after appearing in 12 games.
Girardi, who earned three rings as a Yankees player and one as their manager, told Newsday in a telephone interview that as skipper, he had no say in the rings decision.
“But, obviously, every time I was with the Yankees, they were really, really generous with the rings,” Girardi said. “If you were there one day, you got a ring. I agree with that.”
For the 1986 Mets, the decision as to which players got rings was not without controversy. Although Lynch was told he was getting one a month or two after the World Series, some other players who appeared in only a few games didn’t get theirs until nine years later.
In 1995, Terry Leach, Barry Lyons, Dave Magadan and Randy Myers — who all appeared in 10 games or fewer for the 1986 Mets — were awarded rings by the club.
At the time, general manager Joe McIlvaine said Myers, who turned into a top closer for the Mets before getting traded to the Reds in 1989, was very persistent over the years in asking for one.
Extremely persistent.
“One of the things I always liked in Randy as a player is that he always kept coming at you,” McIlvaine said. “This was the same.”
Lynch, a righthander who debuted with the Mets in 1980 and went on to become the general manager of the Cubs, said: “If I was a GM — I was a GM — and we had won the World Series, anybody that appeared on that roster and played in a game, even the September call-ups, if it was my decision, I would have awarded every one of those guys a ring because they’re part of the team. I mean, scouts get them. The Double-A manager gets them. Why not a guy who played a month on the major-league team?”
In 1986, Lynch threw 1 2⁄3 scoreless innings of relief for the Mets on April 12 and then went on the disabled list with a knee injury. He was traded to the Cubs on June 30 and still was with Chicago the next year when a package arrived at Wrigley Field.
“I was sitting in the home clubhouse, and [Cubs manager] Gene Michael walked up to me and handed me a box from the Mets,” Lynch said. “It meant a lot to me. I think I might have shed a tear or two that day.”
The same could happen for Trammell, who ended the season with the Yankees’ Triple-A team after going 1-for-7 combined for the eventual AL and NL champions, with his only hit a single for the Yankees on April 27.
“The next step is to be a World Series champion, and being there when it’s won,” Trammell recently told The Athletic. “That’s the next goal.”
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
