Joe Maddon "2016 WS Champs" Signed Cubs Blue Jersey Schwartz Authenticated

Secure the championship credential in the manager's own handwriting — inscribed on the blue of the franchise he led to its first title in 108 years — with this Joe Maddon Autographed Chicago Cubs Blue Custom Baseball Jersey, Inscribed "2016 WS Champs" — Schwartz Sports Authenticated. A standard signed jersey documents the manager. The jersey inscribed "2016 WS Champs" documents what the manager accomplished — Maddon's own notation of the specific credential that defines a managerial career: not a batting average, not a home run total, but the championship, written in his handwriting, on the franchise's primary blue, from the year the 108-year drought ended. What the inscription does not document is how close it came to not happening. After Games 1 and 2 in Cleveland, the Cubs returned home to Wrigley Field down 2-0 in the Series. They won Games 3 and 4 at Wrigley to tie it at 2-2. Then they lost Game 5 in Cleveland, 4-1, falling behind 3-1 — a deficit from which only seven teams in World Series history had recovered. Before the 2016 Cubs, only seven franchises in 112 years of World Series competition had come back from 3-1 down to win. The Cubs became the eighth: winning Game 6, 9-3; winning Game 7, 8-7 in ten innings; and producing the specific inscription Maddon wrote on this jersey — "2016 WS Champs" — as the most accurate available single-line description of what the 2016 Chicago Cubs season accomplished. The blue jersey inscribed by Maddon is the championship credential piece — certified authentic by Schwartz Sports Memorabilia with a tamper-proof numbered hologram and a certificate of authenticity verifiable online.

This Chicago Cubs Blue Custom Baseball Jersey has been hand-signed and inscribed "2016 WS Champs" by Joe Maddon. The autograph and inscription have been certified authentic by Schwartz Sports Memorabilia with a tamper-proof numbered hologram and a certificate of authenticity verifiable online.

Product Highlights

• Hand-signed and inscribed "2016 WS Champs" by Joe Maddon — Chicago Cubs manager (2015-2019); 2016 World Series champion; three-time BBWAA Manager of the Year; the manager who ended the franchise's 108-year championship drought
• Chicago Cubs Blue Custom Baseball Jersey — the Cubs' traditional Cubbie blue; the championship colorway of the 2016 World Series; Maddon's "2016 WS Champs" inscription is the championship credential in the manager's own hand
• Schwartz Sports Authenticated — tamper-proof numbered Schwartz Sports hologram with certificate of authenticity verifiable online
• "2016 WS Champs" inscription: Maddon's notation of the specific credential — the World Series championship; for a manager, the championship inscription is the most complete available credential summary in a signed piece
• The 3-1 comeback: Cubs were down 3-1 to the Cleveland Indians heading into Game 5; only eight teams in World Series history had come back from 3-1 down to win — the Cubs became the eighth, winning Games 5, 6, and 7
• 2016 postseason run: NLDS vs. San Francisco Giants (4-1, including 9th inning comeback in Game 4 clincher); NLCS vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (4-2, came back from 2-1 down); World Series vs. Cleveland (4-3, came back from 3-1 down)
• Game 7 managerial decisions: Jon Lester and David Ross final battery (Ross's final career game); Mike Montgomery for the final out (his first career save); the rain delay and Jason Heyward's team meeting under the stands
• Backed by our Lifetime Authenticity Guarantee

"2016 WS Champs" — The Manager's Credential

Players sign their names alongside statistics: a home run total, a batting average, a Cy Young year, an MVP award. The statistics live on the player's career page and verify themselves. For a manager, the equivalent notation — the number that cannot be argued with, the credential that requires no supporting context to carry its full weight — is the championship. Joe Maddon's inscription "2016 WS Champs" is the most complete available credential notation for a Cubs manager's signed jersey: not the winning percentage, not the Manager of the Year awards, not the four consecutive postseason appearances — but the World Series championship, written in his handwriting, in the specific year it happened, on the franchise's primary blue. A manager's championship inscription is rarer than a player's: it requires not one person's performance but twenty-five people's coordination, sustained across 162 regular-season games and however many playoff rounds stand between the roster and the final out of the final game. Maddon's inscription documents the year that coordination produced its most complete result — the 103-win regular season, the postseason run that required a three-game comeback from a 3-1 Series deficit, and the specific championship notation that has been written by only one Cubs manager in the past 116 years.

3-1 Down — The Comeback the Inscription Documents

Before the Cubs became the 2016 World Series champions, they had to become the eighth team in history to win a World Series after trailing 3-1. The previous seven were: the 1925 Pittsburgh Pirates, the 1958 New York Yankees, the 1968 Detroit Tigers, the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates, the 1985 Kansas City Royals, the 2004 Boston Red Sox, and the 2016 Cleveland Indians — who fell on the other side of the equation as the Cubs joined the list. After losing Game 5, 4-1, at Progressive Field on October 29, the Cubs returned to Wrigley Field for Games 6 and 7 having won only 11 games all season when trailing after seven innings. Game 6: Jon Lester threw 5.2 innings; Addison Russell hit a grand slam; the Cubs won 9-3 to force Game 7. Game 7: the Cubs led 6-3 after seven; Aroldis Chapman allowed three runs in the eighth; the teams went to extra innings tied 6-6; Ben Zobrist doubled home Albert Almora Jr. in the tenth; Miguel Montero singled home Báez to make it 8-6; the Indians scored once more; Mike Montgomery induced a groundout from Michael Martinez to end the game 8-7. The inscription "2016 WS Champs" documents the endpoint of that specific sequence — the eight-letter notation of eight games, a 3-1 deficit, and three consecutive victories that produced it.

Game 7 — The Decisions the Manager Made

The final game of the 2016 World Series produced three specific managerial decisions by Joe Maddon that are inseparable from the championship the inscription documents. The first: starting Jon Lester on three days' rest in Game 7, pairing him with catcher David Ross — who was retiring at season's end — for a final battery of two players whose careers in Cubs blue were ending together. Ross hit a solo home run in the sixth inning, one of his final acts as a professional player, to give the Cubs a 6-3 lead. The second: trusting Mike Montgomery to record the final out of the World Series — a reliever who had never recorded a major league save, placed on the mound in the most consequential individual at-bat in Cubs history, and trusted to induce the groundout that ended 108 years. The third: the rain delay. With the teams tied 6-6 heading into the tenth inning, a seventeen-minute rain delay sent the Cubs to the runway beneath the Wrigley visitors' dugout where outfielder Jason Heyward — who had struggled offensively all season — called the team together and delivered an impromptu speech that Maddon has credited with resetting the team's emotional state before the inning that decided the championship. The inscription "2016 WS Champs" belongs to all three decisions — and to the manager who made them. The blue jersey signed and inscribed by Maddon is the piece from the man whose decisions in the final game produced the credential his inscription names.

Schwartz Sports Authentication

This jersey has been certified authentic by Schwartz Sports Memorabilia with a tamper-proof numbered hologram and a certificate of authenticity verifiable online.

Authenticity

This jersey is certified authentic by Schwartz Sports Memorabilia. The tamper-proof numbered hologram and certificate of authenticity are verifiable online.

Specifications

Authenticity Guarantee

Every signed piece at GameDay Sports Memorabilia is backed by our Lifetime Authenticity Guarantee. If your item is ever determined to be inauthentic, we will replace or refund it — no questions asked.