Washington Nationals Pay Tribute to ‘Baby Shark’ on Their World Series Rings
A children's song that became the team's rallying cry has been immortalized on the rings of the 2019 World Series champions, the Washington Nationals.
On Sunday, the club revealed their rings in a ceremony held on YouTube due to safety restrictions during the coronavirus pandemic. The championship jewelry — which the Nationals earned after they defeated the Houston Astros in seven games last October — features over a hundred diamonds placed around the team's curly "W" logo, and the words "Fight Finished" and "Go 1-0 Everyday" on the sides of the ring.
While the ring is undoubtedly flashy on the outside, there's a lot more to see on its interior — there's a list of each team the Nationals beat in the postseason, along with the number of games of each series. Adjacent to the scores is a shark in a Nationals shirt holding the World Series trophy.
The shark is a nod to former player Gerardo Parra, who used the hit kids' song, "Baby Shark," as his walk-up song during part of the 2019 season.
The song shot up the charts in 2018 thanks to a music video of a boy and girl singing and dancing along to its repetitive lyrics while they tell the story of a family of sharks — a baby, mommy, daddy, grandma and grandpa — who hunt and avoid danger together. The video was originally uploaded to YouTube in 2016 by an educational brand from South Korea.
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Washington Nationals/ Youtube Screengrab of the shark logo on the World Series rings
Parra told PEOPLE last year that the song helped to turn the team's luck around.
“I think all the kids, they’re waiting for me, so they get their bodies jumping, do the baby shark, do the daddy shark,” said Parra, who started using the song in honor of his then 2-year-old daughter.
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“That’s a special moment for me, all the kids happy. I think the other more important thing is all these kids and all the fans bringing a lot of energy to us in the big moment where we need it," he continued. "All those connect to the team, and I think that’s [why] we made it a championship year.”
Soon after Parra started using the song, fans began performing the “Baby Shark” dance during games as part of a new ritual to hype up the players as they went up to bat. Now, the influence that Parra and the song had on the team and the city will forever be remembered on their championship rings.
Gerardo Parra
"This ring means more to me than anything just because of what we went through and how we did it," Nationals Manager Dave Martinez said of the rings, according to the Washington Post.
"I praise the boys every day for what they did and thank them for what they went through. It wasn’t easy, but they pulled it off and we’re champs," he said. "That ring, when I look at it, I’ll remember every moment that happened in 2019.”
