Holy Blue Skies, Batman!

Just two days after my rant about the weather, and just in time for the Mariners home opener, it has decided to finally be gorgeous out!

When thinking about Mariners and opening day, there is always the hope of spring and the hope that your team won’t stink this year. But there is another kind of excitement when baseball season rolls around, and that is… how cheesy are the giveaways going to be for the upcoming home season?

There are, of course, the bobbleheads, whose popularity has endured far longer that I would ever have guessed. The Beanie Babies craze wasn’t nearly as long as the bobblehead saga.

What I want to know is, do the people making the bobbleheads actually look at pictures of the people the little statues are supposed to be representing? Let’s look at a picture of Ichiro…

Now let’s look at the upcoming Ichiro bobblehead…

Did they have to make him cross-eyed? And does Ichiro have Angelina Jolie puffy lips? And yes, he always wears stubble, but it is absolutely NOT a chin strap! Interestingly, if you look at this Google image results page for “chin strap”, there are a bunch of penguins on there, and yes, they do have tidy little chin straps!

Then there’s Felix’s bobblehead…

I don’t think they understood the order correctly, they must have thought Felix is a singer in a boy band, not a major league pitcher. The real Felix…

Check out that earring!

My favorite promo this year has to do with Franklin Gutierrez, aka Franklin “Cutie”-errez (yes, girls, he’s a looker)…

His official team pics always have a *Hey, Baby, Come Hither* look

Cutie Guti’s other nickname is Death To Flying Things, so given because of his Gold Glove ability to pretty much catch anything hit into center field, and make it look easy while doing it.

So, the Mariners marketing team clearly got together over this one. They want to capitalize on Cutie-errez’s popularity. But what can you do with “Death To Flying Things?” How about this…

That’s right, who doesn’t need a Franklin Gutierrez Fly Swatter! I wish I got paid for thinking up this stuff!