‘We’ve got room to grow’: Phillies mark their 2022 National League pennant with super-sized championship ring

John Middleton slipped the Phillies’ 1980 World Series ring on his index finger. He placed the 2008 World Series ring, more diamond-studded than its antecedent and larger by a magnitude, on his middle finger.

Then, the Phillies’ billionaire owner and hand model du jour, lifted a 2022 National League championship ring out of its box and tried it on for size.

It dwarfed them both.

“What you can see,” Middleton said with a smile, “is there’s ring inflation.”

In spring training, Middleton promised the Phillies’ NL bling would be a sight to see. Unveiled Sunday and presented to 29 players and 12 coaches in an on-field ceremony, the 14-karat white gold rings have 668 gemstones, including 419 diamonds, 152 rubies, and 97 sapphires. They also contain designs that were synonymous with the postseason run, including radio play-by-player Scott Franzke’s signature “Bedlam at the Bank” call and “Dancing On My Own,” the title of the song that became the team’s anthem.

Hey, when you’ve won only eight pennants in 140 seasons, you’re entitled to go all-out.

“This is our eighth [NL] championship, so this is a big deal,” said Middleton, who joined president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski in handing out the rings. “It’s not something that happens all the time. We’d like to make it more frequent, but it’s not that. So, we want it to be special.”

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But it does raise a question: If the Phillies worked with a diamond dealer in Beverly Hills to design such an ornate ring for a pennant, what might they do if they happen to win another World Series?

Middleton, it turns out, asked a variation of the same question.

“I said, ‘You’ve got to be able to look at this,’” Middleton said, “‘and tell me that if we win the World Series, we can have a better ring.’”

During the process, Jason Arasheben, CEO of Jason of Beverly Hills, sent Middleton a copy of a Los Angeles Rams’ Super Bowl ring that was actually smaller than the jewelry the Phillies were designing. But Arasheben noted that it was the Rams’ “Level 3″ ring. There were two other versions, including the one received by the players, that were larger than the Phillies’ model.

“So, we’ve got room to grow,” Middleton said.

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The Phillies decided to give a ring to every player who had at least one day of major league service time last season — 63 players, in all. Some, such as second baseman Jean Segura, are no longer in the organization. Segura will receive his ring this week when the Miami Marlins visit Citizens Bank Park.

Others are back in the minor leagues. And in a nice touch, triple-A Lehigh Valley got the day off after playing a doubleheader Saturday, enabling Michael Plassmeyer, Dalton Guthrie, Scott Kingery, Simón Muzziotti, and Francisco Morales to take part. Injured pitchers Ranger Suárez, Nick Nelson, and Cristopher Sánchez and catcher Rafael Marchán came into town from Clearwater, Fla., too.

And in the most poignant moment of the ceremony, Rhys Hoskins emerged from the dugout on crutches, but in full uniform, his surgically reconstructed left knee in a brace, and accepted his ring, an embrace from Middleton, and an ovation from the announced crowd of 39,129.

“That was pretty great, wasn’t it?” Middleton said. “It was emotionally difficult because you see a guy who’s obviously hobbling around. Huge loss for us. Emotional loss as well as a physical presence. He’s bearing up really, really well. It’s got to be tough for him. I know it is. He wants to be out there.”

Manager Rob Thomson said watching Hoskins, a homegrown player and the second-longest-tenured member of the active roster, get his ring made him “a little bit emotional.”

“And I’m not really an emotional person,” Thomson said. “But watching Rhys come out and get the ovation he got, yeah, for a guy who’s been around here for as long as he has and gone through some tough times and has done a lot in this city to help people, it was a great moment.”

The ring will mean something different for everyone. Middleton, who said his favorite feature is the piece of leather from a ball from Game 5 of the NL Championship Series that’s inlaid under the ring top, plans to keep his in his office. Thomson figures he will wear his to special functions.

“It’s the culmination of a lot of effort from a lot of different people,” Thomson said. “So many people contributed. Michael Plassmeyer comes in the last day of the season and gives us six innings and saves our bullpen for the playoffs. If he doesn’t do that, maybe we don’t beat St. Louis. Cris Sanchez gave us 46 innings. Bailey Falter, who’s here now, but when [Zack Wheeler] went down, he really held our rotation together and pitched great.

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“There’s so many different things that happened during the course of the year that all those guys, it doesn’t matter how much they played or how well they played, they contributed in some way. They need to be here. They earned it.

“And [the ring] is the prize. Now, we want to get the big one.”

Bigger, in fact, than even this ring.