Spring training is right around the corner for readers who suffer from what NPR’s Robert Siegel describes as “advanced baseballophilia”, and the 2017 World Baseball Classic has already begun for the internationally minded readers.
Watch brands love baseball too but for different reasons than the average enthusiast. Hublot is especially interested in the sport. In 2010 the presidents of Hublot U.S. and Manfredi Jewels commemorated Alex Rodriguez’s 600 home runs with a unique Big Bang Power Black Magic Chronograph before a packed Tampa Bay Rays game in Yankee Stadium. The Swiss company is also a global sponsor of this year’s 2017 World Baseball Classic.
Rodriquez’s girlfriend, actress Jennifer Lopez, has her own line of fashionable quartz watches, The Jennifer Lopez Collection.
Current American watchmakers find inspiration in the sport but in different ways.
Vortic Watch Co. in Fort Collins, CO, honors the Chicago Cubs 2016 World Series victory over the Cleveland Indians that ended the team’s 108-year World Series drought in its Chicago World Champions Commemorative Set. The set includes its American Artisan Series 2.0 watch with an Elgin movement and a leather strap cut from a vintage baseball glove. Created by artist Tim Cullen, a fountain pen made of wood from Wrigley Field seats from the 1930s is included.
Inspired by an 1892 Waltham baseball dial pocket watch in the 2012 exhibit Time Out at the National Watch and Clock Museum, Roland Murphy, founder of RGM Watch Co., in Lititz, PA, decided to make his own. In 2015 Murphy released the limited edition PS-801-BB or “Baseball in Enamel” wristwatch. All ten watches were sold—a testament to the continued popularity of baseball and appreciation of the American Spirit.
