Ok. Breathe. Now breathe a little bit less loudly, you're scaring the dog.
Before we get into this conversation, know that I am first and foremost a) a New Yorker and b) a collector and c) I promise, despite the things I care about intently, a man with friends. I am predisposed to hate the Boston Red Sox and find fault with their choices. I am also predisposed to hate ungrateful fans of the Red Sox who act like their current ownership group is the cheapest pack of villains to ever grace this earth, despite another boffo offseason, an Alex Bregman contract that worked out in their favor and four championships in 20 years (plus the Celtics, Pats and Bruins!).
And yet ... those ungrateful fans may have a point here. Because I have never seen anything more brazenly skinflint than the way the Red Sox, one of the most storied organizations in the 150+-year history of baseball, have handled their promotional giveaways and coveted bobbleheads this year.
Yes, bobbleheads. The plaster giant-headed toddlers of the 1960s that inexplicably made a comeback in the early 2000s — only it wasn't that hard to explain. People like free stuff. Collectors like finding an additional hustle. Everyone loves huge heads! Start making the dolls of our favorite players, and we will flock to the ballpark.
And that's the thing here. Bobbleheads were originally deployed as an attendance booster. All promotional giveaways are supposed to entice folks to come out to the old ballpark, enjoy a soda pop, watch your team get two-hit by a left-handed bum from Double-A and fight with a 45-year-old man over a ceramic Fred McGriff figurine (New In Box!). In order to get that attendance boost, yet still create a little competition and intrigue (plus getting fans in the door for an extra 1.5 hours of concession shopping), teams will typically give away fewer bobbleheads than their stadium's capacity. If a stadium seats 50,000, it might be appropriate to give away 30,000 dolls. Maybe 25k. I'll accept 20,000.
But the Boston Red Sox don't need your attendance. They know they're the only game in town (except the Celtics, Pats and Bruins). They walk around like they invented baseball and it's different here because their fans like to hear it. We're the only city with fans! Anyway, they know they'll be nearly sold out nightly with or without a bauble to hand out to the kiddos (and weird men). If it's cheaper not to give away anything close to the Fenway Park capacity number, they're more than happy to reduce the cost and prove that their generosity was perfunctory anyway.
Two weeks from now, the Red Sox are giving away a super cool Ceddanne Rafaela bobblehead. Some of them feature him at shortstop! Some of them feature him in center field! Highly collectible. Surely, if there are two different varieties, both are being handed out in reasonable numbers!
Nah. 7,500 fans. 7,500 fans. 3,750 of each. That's a post-two-hour-rain-delay-in-September crowd. If you're not at Fenway three hours before first pitch in the mid-afternoon to line up, you're not getting one. Mr. John Henry, I'm not sure how they do things in "Liverpool," but here in America? We like to actually receive the dolls we're promised.
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Red Sox promo schedule (and bobblehead days) are built for a Tropicana Field crowd, not Fenway Park
Presenting bobblehead sponsor Nuna must be rolling in their ... hair care products? Insurance? I have ... no idea what Nuna is.
For reference, the Pittsburgh Pirates, perhaps the most publicly cheap team in professional sports (dumped fans' Memory Bricks in a landfill, taped over a tribute to their most iconic and deceased star with an ad for sweet tea and vodka, probably a third thing), allotted 20,000 Paul Skenes bobbleheads last week for their highly anticipated giveaway. Feeling terrible in the aftermath about that low number — and in desperate need of a PR boost — they retroactively agreed to produce a bobble for every attendee that missed out.
The Red Sox? Sorry you didn't get one of our handful of Rafaela bobbles. Here's a voucher for a 20% discount on the chunk of the ceiling that falls on your head after a Raffy Devers RBI double. Yeah, we make you pay for the ceiling. So good! So good! So good!
So, apologies, Red Sox fans. I thought you were spoiled and should appreciate everything that ownership has done for you and ignore recent profit margin-centric decisions. But this is the lowest of the low. This proves the owner's box is full of basilisks, and they derisively sneer at you every marginal change they get.
Team's really good, though. As always. Dammit.