“He doesn’t want it to be a hang-on-the-wall trophy piece. He wants it to be played”: Eddie Vedder and Fender have designed a new custom Telecaster – and it’s a trophy for a baseball tournament

The Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres recently battled it out for the Vedder Cup trophy – a literal custom electric guitar that takes inspiration from the 1963 Telecaster that Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder plays on stage.

For years, the two teams have been linked by Pearl Jam fans thanks to Vedder's association with each city, with fans jokingly dubbing their matchups “the Vedder Cup.” In 2025, MLB decided to make this official, and, in keeping with the theme, the trophy is a real, playable custom guitar designed by Vedder himself in association with Fender.

However, before it became the official trophy of the Vedder Cup, the Pearl Jam frontman couldn't help but give it a test run.

“We spent about an hour with it. He gave it a good run through,” George Webb, Pearl Jam's longtime equipment manager, tells The Seattle Times.

“He always likes to feel like he puts a little energy, you know, spiritual energy, into an instrument. Not just hand off something that’s brand-new, never-touched kind of thing. So yeah, jammed on it for about an hour. Had a good time.”

And while the name and logo for the event were unveiled in March, the guitar trophy (which, spoiler alert, was awarded to the Seattle Mariners) was only revealed recently, since the actual instrument was only finished in the last few weeks.

“Typically, on a custom build like this, it will take us six months or so to source the wood, get everything mapped out ready to go, and take our time to vet the process, apply the graphics, do some test runs,” comments Chase Paul, director of product development for Fender.

“On this, we just kind of headed into it in parallel with testing and the production version at the same time, and kind of getting it ready to go. Really incredible effort by the team in the shop.”

After all, the intricacy is in the details. Aside from resembling the same model that Vedder plays in terms of specs, there's also a silver-and-black cresting wave, hand-drawn by Vedder, that envelops the top of the instrument to the strap button – an element which proved tricky to add.

“It’s airbrushed on there and to try and get that to match what we had mapped out on the original graphics that George sent over, and tried to get that to pop, really, against the silver background of the guitar, that is probably the most difficult part of the whole thing,” explains Paul.

Other notable design elements include Vedder's signature on the front of the headstock, black interlocking team logos on the body and etched into the volume and tone control knobs, and a marking for EB Research Partnership (a charity co-founded by Vedder and his wife, Jill).

Plus, there are small chrome plates for the winning team of each season series to engrave the results of the matchup and their logo, and an arrow and a mod symbol between the two teams' logos that serves as a tribute to The Who, Vedder's favorite band growing up.

As Webb perfectly sums it up, “He wanted to make something that potentially could live in the team’s clubhouse during the season and be played by players, and appreciated and used.

“He doesn’t want it to be a hang-on-the-wall trophy piece. He wants it to be played. That’s his attitude with everything. It’s a living, breathing instrument. It sounds great.”

Speaking of custom and signature guitars, Vedder recently debuted one of Jack White’s signature guitars on stage to play a Pearl Jam deep cut.