Washington Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo on sharing Commissioner’s Trophy with D.C.

We wrote last week about Washington Nationals’ GM Mike Rizzo placing the Commissioner’s Trophy in the window of his Navy Yard home so that fans and random passersby could get a glimpse or a picture with the fruit of the club’s labor last season. Fans who happened to see the trophy on display posted pictures on social media. Rizzo even made a cameo in a few of them.

It was a kind gesture on the part of the General Manager, who shared the trophy in a safe way on the day that would have been the home opener in D.C. if not for COVID-19 and its spread, which led to Major League Baseball postponing the start of the 2020 campaign.

So, how did Rizzo make the decision to display the trophy? It was apparently a spur of the moment type of thing.

“It was by chance,” Rizzo explained when he spoke with reporters in a conference call this past Friday afternoon.

“My wife was having a social happy hour, a virtual happy hour, so she was on with ten or so of our friends.

“Because it was Opening Day I figured that I’d show them the trophy on the virtual call, and I figured why not put it in the front window where people if they drive by or walk by can see it and kind of get a good feeling with it being Opening Day and remind people what Opening Day is all about is at the end of this marathon, starting today gets you this trophy.”

Did he see the social media reaction to his decision to share the trophy with D.C. residents?

“It was actually, it was a big hit,” Rizzo said.

“There were people that caused a couple of traffic issues because people were pulling over and getting out and taking pictures. It became a thing, I guess.”

It did become a thing, and for a few hours at least, the GM of the defending World Series champions brought some joy to folks during a tough time for fans in the nation’s capital, and people around the world.

“I’m not a big social media person, but I guess it was trending pretty well on the social media scale,” Rizzo said.