I wish I had a cool bobblehead. The only one that I have is a Cecil Cooper model, which I got on my one and only trip to Miller Park back in 2006. It came in a nice box, which listed his career highlights, giving special emphasis to his role on the 1982 Brewers team that won the American League pennant.
Everyone seems to have a bobblehead at some point. Jerry Garcia had a bobblehead for the Giants a few years ago. Rennie Stennett of the Pirates had a bobblehead that I could have bought for $2 plus shipping on ebay last night, but I decided against it. Mike Trout has a bobblead that someone thinks is worth almost $40 on ebay. And the list surely goes on and on.
But the bar for bobbleheads has been raised considerably by a giveaway at Dodger Stadium on Tuesday night. It might be the only time a player for a visiting team has been honored by such a promotion. Of course, Rick Monday’s status as a longtime announcer for the Dodgers means he’s more associated with the team than any other, but the signature moment of his career came while he was wearing a Chicago Cubs uniform. If you somehow don’t know the backstory for this event, here’s a description I wrote in this space last year.
There are already a number of these bobbleheads available on ebay, with most of them in the $25 range. That’s a lot to pay for an item like this, and I’m not personally in the market for this item. But if I lived near L.A., it might have enticed me to think about taking in the game where it was given away.
Watching the anemic Cubs office flail away against Clayton Kershaw would probably just make me want to hurl the bobblehead out onto the field in frustration. And there’s very little chance that Rick Monday would be there to save the day again if I did. Maybe we could call it “Monday saves Monday saving the flag.” I’m sure that stranger things than that have happened on the diamond already.
The game turned out to be a surprise, too — the Cubs actually won the game and beat the great Kershaw. Baseball is nothing but unpredictable, isn’t it?