Baseball Fakes Out Fans

Baseball has long been a source of innovative promotion events, from the disastrous – the Cleveland Indians’ Nickel Beer Night and Chicago White Sox Disco Demolition come quickly to mind – to wildly successful events that bring sellout crowds, particularly in the minors.  Two such teams may be taking that innovation to a new level in 2013 – and at minimal expense.

Kentucky’s Florence Freedom team will apparently shell out just the cost of a small, empty cardboard box for the first 1,000 fans on Manti Te’o Fake Girlfriend Bobblehead Night on May 23. They also will rope off a special section for people to bring their imaginary friends.

There’s no word if the imaginary friends must buy their own tickets, but Freedom GM Josh Anderson says fans can make the bobblehead out to be whatever they want it to be.

Te’o, an All-American college footballer from Notre Dame, claimed after the BCS Championship game that he was duped in a bizarre scheme involving a fake “girlfriend” he met online. The tale of how Te’o played through the pain of the girlfriend’s “death” became a major storyline during the 2012 college football season.

Meanwhile, in Brooklyn, N.Y., a Mets farm team is making a distinction between “fake” and “fictional” with a “Fictitious Friday” promotion June 21.

The Brooklyn Cyclones will pit Sid Finch, making his professional pitching debut, against Roy Hobbs and the New York Knights. Finch, the rookie with the 186-mph fastball, was the subject of a 1985 Sports Illustrated April Fool’s Day prank. Hobbs was the protagonist, and the Knights his team, in Bernard Malamud’s 1952 baseball classic, “The Natural,” made into a 1984 film starring Robert Redford.

In addition to the fictional faceoff, the Cyclones promise to provide a petting zoo “featuring a unicorn, a mermaid and a Minotaur,” adding they “are also in discussion with the Loch Ness Monster and Big Foot to throw out a ceremonial first pitch.”

But, wait! There’s more!

“Fans should be sure to arrive early because prior to the game, The Beatles will reunite for a once-in-a-lifetime concert event,” Cyclones spokesman Jason Solomon said in an email, adding, “OK, that’s apparently not true, either, but this girl I met online told me she could make it happen.”

Brooklyn’s video board will feature player headshots of “random people whose photos we found on the Internet.”
“Everywhere you look, there seems to be another story about an athlete that was covering up something,” said Cyclones GM Steve Cohen.  “People don’t know who, or what, to believe any more. That got us thinking – let’s have a night where our fans don’t have to worry about what’s real and what’s not, we’ll just tell them everything planned for that night is a hoax.”