It’s that delightful time of the year where we get to plan our baseball ticket purchases based on the free swag we get at the stadium.
The Mets have posted a preliminary list of its promotional dates in the old dump lovingly known as Shea Stadium. There will be many more promotions added later. After all, we didn’t know about Keith Hernandez Fake Mustache Night until earlier that week, but this gives us at least a good idea where the Mets will be going with their free giveaways this season.
Right off the bat, there’s nothing nearly as cool as the Endy Chavez bobblehead from last season that commemorated “The Catch” in the 2006 NLCS. And there’s not even anything as cool as “The Running Presidents” bobbleheads that the Nationals gave out last season. But that’s not to say there isn’t some nice stuff being handed out this season.
A few dates stand out, including a pair of Sunday games that offer both a Johan Santana bobblehead (Sun. Sept. 7 vs. Phils) that’s unfortunately only for the rugrats and a designer Mets T-shirt (Sun. June 13 vs. Rockies), presented by Southpole. I want an Affliction-style Mets tee. I hope Southpole comes up with something good. Come to think of it, they’re giving away foam fingers (Sun. April 27 vs. Braves) on a Sunday too. Who doesn’t want a free foam finger? So clearly those Sunday plan season-ticket holders made out best. You can’t get Chick-fil-A on Sundays, but you can get some cool swag at Shea.
Aside from that, there’s the normal collection of caps, T-shirts and collector cups, with one exception. There’s a Shea Stadium replica (Sat. June 14 vs. Rangers) from Nathans. I hope it’s a Shea-shaped corndog.
