Like it or Not, Vedder Cup Returns as Padres, Mariners Revisit Unusual Rivalry: Column

So, is the Vedder Cup still a thing?

Should the Vedder Cup still be a thing?

Of course it is, and should be.

The Seattle Mariners open defense of their inaugural Vedder Cup championship when they visit the San Diego Padres for a three-game series starting Tuesday night at Petco Park.

The Padres make the return visit to Seattle to face their “natural rivals” in what could be the decisive three games May 15-17. The teams are on a roll heading into their first showdown of the season, with the Padres having won five in a row and eight of nine, and the Mariners having won four straight to snap a five-game losing streak.

The Mariners dominated the season series last year to claim the trophy in the first official Vedder Cup, which is named for Pearl Jam singer-guitarist Eddie Vedder, who has connections to both San Diego and Seattle. The Mariners put the Padres in the Rearviewmirror by winning the first four games and slugging catcher Cal Raleigh celebrated by hoisting the trophy, a Fender Telecaster guitar designed and signed by Vedder.

The Mariners went on to win the season series 5-1 and, perhaps emboldened by their Vedder Cup championship, came oh so close to reaching their first World Series before losing Game 7 of the American League Championship Series to the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Padres, meanwhile, meekly bowed out of the postseason when they were beaten in three games in a wild-card series by the Chicago Cubs, scoring only five runs.

That’s apparently where the Vedder Cup turned Black for the Padres and their fans.

Vedder, who grew up in the Chicago area before moving to San Diego when he was 8, cheered on his beloved Cubbies during the series at Wrigley Field and joined in the wild clubhouse celebration after the clincher. Owner Tom Ricketts even poured a beer over the rock star’s head.

That didn’t sit well with Padres fans, who felt Vedder was a Nothingman and called for an end to the Vedder Cup.

Perhaps they would have felt differently had the Padres remained Alive in the postseason, but the local nine were so cooked that the only real highlight of the series came when fireballer Mason Miller struck out Carson Kelly in Game 2 with a 104.5-mph fastball, the fastest pitch thrown in the postseason since pitch tracking began in 2008.

The Mariners are no doubt eager to have another Go at the Vedder Cup.

But the Padres are basically saying, Why Go. Word from inside Petco Park is that the Padres won’t actively promote the Vedder Cup games in San Diego, but they will continue to support their financial commitment to Epidermolysis Bullosa (EB) Research Partnership, a charity co-founded by Eddie and Jill Vedder to funding research into finding treatments and cures for EB, a rare genetic skin condition.

Could be a case of Indifference. Or maybe wanting the Vedder Cup to Do the Evolution and disappear.

Is the Vedder Cup a bit silly? Perhaps. But probably no sillier than the “natural rivalry” that was foisted on these teams way back in 1997 with the start of interleague play.

It was the best MLB could do, considering that there wasn’t an easy rivalry these teams could slide into like the Freeway Series between the Dodgers and Angels and the Bay Bridge Series that existed when the A’s were still in Oakland and faced off against the Giants.

But San Diego and Seattle do share a spring training complex in Peoria, Ariz. … and Eddie Vedder.

A little understanding of the origins of the Vedder Cup might help ease the sting of seeing Vedder in a Cubs cap.

The Vedder Cup was unofficially born in spring training 2011, back when blogging was a thing and there was a relatively new app called Twitter.

Padres fan and blogger Geoffrey Hancock made first mention of a “Battle for the Eddie Vedder Jug,” and then Padres beat writers Dan Hayes and Corey Brock turned to Twitter to nail down a name for the mythical championship.

While some fans have scoffed at any mention of the Vedder Cup, it was meant to be something fun to look forward to during some really grim seasons at Petco Park and up the coast in Seattle.

MLB and the two teams made the Vedder Cup official last season.

Back to Vedder: He spent his formative years in San Diego surfing, working at a gas station, attending and then dropping out of San Dieguito High, and, perhaps most importantly, shaping the “Momma-Son Trilogy” of “Alive,” “Once” and “Footsteps” before moving to Seattle to help form Pearl Jam.

Pearl Jam closed its most recent show in San Diego, in 2022, with the “Momma-Son Trilogy.”

And really, if San Diegans have a beef with Vedder, it should be that Pearl Jam didn’t play here on its most recent tour. Or that the band has never played at Petco Park, while it has played at T-Mobile Park, Wrigley Field and Fenway Park.

It’s OK if the Vedder Cup and even Pearl Jam are Not For You.

The Padres and their fans have a thing going with Blink-182, the band that popped up out of suburban Poway in the early 1990s, and whose singer-guitarist Tom DeLonge often attends games at Petco Park.

But the games will go on and maybe the Pendulum will swing in the Padres’ favor. The ultimate Vedder Cup would be if the Mariners and Padres could somehow, some way, ever face off in the World Series.

That’s something that should be on everybody’s Wishlist.

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