Friday, August 01, 2008

Laundry Guerrilla Marketing

Blue Heaven reader, Lupe, just sent me some unbelievable pics. While doing her laundry at a local laundromat she found a whole bunch of red socks. What's so unusual about that you say. Well, these aren't just any red socks. These socks closely resemble Boston Red Socks. Not only that, they had a special tag from ESPN welcoming Manny to LA. Check out the pics below.
"Lose a sock, Boston? ESPN joins Los Angeles in welcoming Manny Ramirez."

I Wish I Was There

More pics from the National are here. This time MikeH has some photos to view. Check out the rest of them here.

My favorite part of these large shows are the display cases filled with stuff. Check out the Baseball gloves below- especially the gloves on the second row from the bottom. The two gloves on the left are examples of fielder gloves used nearly a hundred years ago. They were small with very little webbing. A far cry from the giant mitts used by todays ballplayers.
The top row in the display case below has some Baseball statues that were very popular from the 1950's to 1960's. You can see the Japanese version made in post WWII Japan on the top left, the original American made Rittgers statues are in the center and the Africanized version (made in post WWII Japan) is on the far right. The African version has some obvious racist overtones.
Slot machines and Baseball- my two favorite things.
Can you say bobbleheads.
Hat Tip: Vintage Baseball Memorabilia Forum:

2008 National Convention VIP/ Promo Cards

With every large card convention comes limited edition VIP/ promotional cards only available at the show. Everyone from Topps to Press Pass (known for NASCAR cards) are there to pass out these little gems. After a little scouring I found a few pics of this years offerings. (Taken from Kit Young's website)

Topps Allen & Ginter is passing out a 6 card set to VIP registrars that includes the great Jackie Robinson (below).
Here is the complete 6 card set that includes Don Larson, Jackie Robinson, Lou Gehrig, Mickey Mantle, Babe Ruth and Johnny Unitas.
Here is a 5 card retro VIP set from Topps designed to look like the 1958 Topps set. The Bob Gibson card below is a fantasy card since he did not have a Topps card in 1958. I guess you can say it's his "rookie card."