(This is simply about the Stadium Giveaway Bobble Head dolls. The ones we are selling are many times more valuable still!)


ESPN.com - July 1, 2001


The Beanie Baby of the New Millennium
by Darren Rovell


The most coveted ticket of the regular season for Mariners fans is July 28. For Twins fans, it's August 19. And Monday has been circled on the calendars of Yankees fans for some time.

Seattle fans may already have purchased tickets, but will likely will sleep outside of Safeco Field the night before the Mariners' game, only to quickly exit after going through the turnstiles. Three weeks later, at the Metrodome in Minneapolis, some Twins fans won't even bother to see a pitch, so long as they're one of the first 15,000 people in the ballpark. And at Yankee Stadium, a weekday matchup with the Devil Rays just wouldn't be as enticing without a chance to land one of the most coveted prizes this year.

Bobbleheads, those smile-inducing, wobbly-headed cherubic dolls clad in baseball garb and given facial features of baseball's top players past or present, have become the Beanie Babies of the new millennium. And if you want one made in the likeness of Mariners outfielder Ichiro Suzuki, former Twins great Kirby Puckett or Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter, you'd better get to the game early. Supplies won't last.

It's a resurrection of the early 1960s and '70s craze over papier-mâché dolls, only today's ceramic-like collectibles are hotter than tickets to a Yankees-Red Sox game. With stadium giveaways of star look-a-like bobbleheads fetching as much as $270 apiece on the secondary market, and mid-tier players commanding no less than $35, fans are scurrying to the turnstiles to cash in.

"They are hard to get, and they are really well made," 13-year-old Matt Janssen from North Bergen, N.J. said after grabbing a Jeter bobblehead on Monday. Janssen, who stands a husky 5-foot-8, brought his birth certificate and school identification as proof he met the age requirements for the Jeter giveaway, as the dolls were meant only for kids 14-and-under.
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The Twins gave away four dolls in 2000, the organization's 40th anniversary season. Five thousand Harmon Killebrew dolls were given away in three minutes at one game, and it took two minutes longer at another before the supply of Kent Hrbek dolls ran out. Not wanting to be left out, some fans camped out the night before the Kirby Puckett giveaway.

The set, including a Tony Oliva bobblehead, was given to the team's 2001 season-ticket holders. Some have sold it for more than $500 in online auctions.

For Klinger, who commissioned bobbleheads that resemble former Twins stars Bert Blyleven, Rod Carew and Dave Winfield, as well as a Puckett Hall of Fame-licensed version to be given away in August, it wasn't easy being the guy in charge.

"I took criticism from all corners," said Klinger, who reports ticket sales on bobblehead-giveaway days typically increase by 13,000 to 22,000 a game.

Team promotional staffs can only do so much to ensure that bobbleheads are given away fairly to fans. Although staff are told to be on the lookout for double-dippers, creative entrepreneurs often are equal to the challenge. One man bought seven tickets to the Mets' Mookie Wilson Bobblehead Day at Shea Stadium on June 23 and, after his son and a friend walked in and out of several gates, carried away six dolls.

Fast-talkers with sad stories, however, weren't as effective. One man told a promotional staffer that he had an extra ticket for his 5-year-old daughter who couldn't attend the game. He pulled out her picture from his wallet and asked if he could have one for her.

No luck.
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