Photos of new Giveaways from the Phillies

The Phillies have just released a few new photos of some giveaways fans will be receiving in the coming months. First we have the "Walk-off win" print which will be given out to all women 15 and older on July 6. The print features a photo from the May 19 game versus the Cincinnati Reds when the Phillies won on a Freddy Galvis walk-off home run hit off of Aroldis Chapman.

For all you knitters out there, the annual Stitch n' Pitch Night is August 7 this year. The first 500 fans who purchase tickets for this special event will recieve a coupon for a free Phillies Stich n' Pitch Night tumbler. In 2010, the gift was a Phillie Phanatic knitting a scarf Bobblehead. Just sayin’.

The next promotion update is one of the better giveaways of the season: on August 23 is the 1991 John Kruk figurine giveaway. All kids 14 and under will get the replica figure of the Krukker, and all of those young fans will likely have the figure stolen from them by their fathers. I'm going to trade ice cream in a helmet to my 3-year old for his. Don't judge.

August 25 is back-to-school night at CBP, and all fans 14 and under will receive this backpack. I will not be bartering for this. Finally, we have the last two giveaways: a knit hat for all fans 15 and older on September 6 and a Ben Revere growth chart for all fans 14 and under on September 8. See how small you can come up, kids! To his credit Revere has turned things around a little bit. He's batting .339 in June and he leads the team this month in runs scored with 10. 

 ©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Photos courtesy of Phillies.com

Carlos Ruiz Bobblehead Night: One Million Bobbleheads!

Photo courtesy of @Phillies on Twitter. ©Phillies.com

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Tonight will be a historic game of sorts in the Phillies giveaway world. By night’s end, the Phillies will have given away over 1,000,000 bobbleheads since 2001. It sounds like a lot, but in comparison to other teams in baseball they're probably in the middle of the pack of bobbleheads distributed since ‘01. The Phillies will continue to have their "Phillies bobbleheads collection on display" behind section 133. 

The Phillies plan to celebrate their millionth bobblehead with a special one-of-a-kind giveaway for one fan. Among the 45,000+ plus Carlos Ruiz bobbleheads will be one Carlos Ruiz autographed gold bobblehead. It’s a move reminiscent of Willy Wonka that has been done by a few professional sports teams in the past but, to my knowledge, never as a one-of-a-kind prize. It should be a good night for the Phillies promotions department, and it will interesting to see who gets the gold bobblehead and whether it makes it way to eBay – where it could fetch upwards of $1,000. 

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Phanatic of the Month Bobblehead for June

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Here's the new Phanatic of the Month bobblehead for June. It features the Philie Phanatic in his golf attire swinging away. This is a sort of Father's Day edition and, as with previous months, is limited to 150.

Click to Enlarge - ©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Tastykake Sunglasses and a chance meeting with Curt Schilling

Wednesday, May 31, 2013

The Phillies have announced the 2013 fan selection for the Phillies Wall of Fame, and it's Curt Schilling! It was the most obvious choice for many reasons, and I'm completely fine with it. I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Schilling in 1992 when I was 10 years old and he couldn't have been nicer, so I always cut him some slack when he was being a blowhard, which seemed like it was more often than not. It was a very memorable Phillies moment in my childhood. It was July 19, 1992, and it was Phillies Sunglasses Day. The sunglasses they gave out that day were actually sort of replicas of shades that Schilling wore during that time. After the game, my dad and I did the usual hang-out where the players exit and some would walk by and stop and sign a few things. The spot seemed to always be mobbed; I think you had to leave the game early to get a good spot. Anyway, we ended up hanging around longer than usual and we were walking around the outside of the stadium. We came up to a driveway leading down to some doors where cars were parked, and as we were walking by out stepped Curt Schilling and his hot wife. Schilling was wearing – and I kid you not – a tank top, what looked like a bathing suit and flip flops, and he had a bat on his shoulder. If it weren't for the bat and his wife, you would've thought he was beer vendor. I walked up to Schilling and politely asked for an autograph but then had the horrible realization that I had lost my pen. Luckily for me, Shonda Schilling came through in the clutch with a red pen and Curt happily signed my ticket stub. So, Curt Schilling is a fine pick in my book, and given the fact that his love for video gaming cost him pretty much every penny he made playing baseball, I say welcome to the Phillies Wall of Fame.  

Two bonus tidbits to that Schilling story: First, until about five years ago, the autographed ticket was missing. I searched high and low through all of my crap for years for that damn thing. Then one day my dad found a box of my stuff at his house and in it were all my old ticket stubs, including the signed Schilling one. Second, as for the Tastykake Phillies sunglasses, I protected the stupid glasses like they were made out of crystal. Two days after the game, I was at a friend's Little League game and we started up a wiffle ball game in an empty parking lot. I placed the glasses on a curb, in a place where no one would go near them. I made sure of this. I looked at the glasses, looked back to where we were playing, and determined that no way in hell would anyone be near here during the game. So we finish the game and headed back to my friend's house, where it hit me: my sunglasses! My friend's mom drove me back to the field, I ran over to the curb and there were the sunglasses....smashed into what felt like a million tiny pieces. I went through the five stages of grief in a minute. I was sad of course; I was ten and at that moment the glasses represented one of the best Phillies games I had attended. I was angry, and determined to find out who did it and get revenge. Then the bargaining set in, as I started collecting all the pieces and told myself that they could be fixed (didn't happen). Then there was more sadness and of course the acceptance that the oversized piece of junk Tastykake Phillies sunglasses were gone forever. What ten-year-old me didn't know was that there was a magical thing coming down the line called the Internet, which would lead to the nostalgic wonderland known as eBay. Yes, two years ago I stumbled upon a new-in-package pair of oversized piece of junk Tastykake Phillies sunglasses. I want to thank the kid who didn't want them for allowing me to recapture this gaudy, meaningful, made-in-Taiwan piece of my childhood. In the end, after losing the two most memorable things from my trip to the Vet on July 17, 1992, I sort of found them both. 

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

First look at the 2013 Cole Hamels SGA Bobblehead

Friday, May 31, 2013

It's only a teaser picture as it's so small, but here's your first look at the Cole Hamels Bobblehead to be given away on August 21. It's okay, but I would've liked to see a triple bobblehead with Cliff Lee, the Phanatic, a hot dog gun and a mustachioed Hamels on an ATV. I don't think that's asking for too much! I believe it's time for the Phillies to rethink their bobblehead giveaways. If you take a look around the league, there are so many different-looking bobbleheads, yet the Phillies continue to roll out the same old boring design. Wouldn't hurt to add one more bobblehead giveaway a year either.

Photos courtesy of Phillies.com, HardballTalk.com 

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

The Mysterious Kenner Starting Lineup Giveaways

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

I've been doing a good amount of research for Phillies giveaways of the past and none have been more interesting to me than two giveaways are from Kenner Sports Figure Days that took place on April 29, 1989 and April 15, 1990. For those of you not familiar with the toy company Kenner, heres a brief  history. The reason I find this so interesting is there is very little evidence that these giveaways ever took place. I'm not saying they didn't, because they definitely did. It's just odd that it's so hard to find Phillies Starting Lineup figures that were given away. Searching eBay, Craigslist, and collectibles stores, there isn't a trace of a Kenner Starting Lineup Figure that looks like an exclusive Phillies giveaway. But I have found a few pieces of information that have led me to draw a conclusion about them.

The first is the 1989 Phanatic Promotional Lineup advertisment. These ads always seem to have very accurate drawings of giveaways from that year. Some are a little off from the actual giveaway, but I'd say 95% are correct. In the 1989 ad, there is a drawing of a player figure that is in a white uniform, fielding. After looking through the 1989 Starting Lineup Phillies Checklist, I narrowed the drawing down to Von Hayes. So this opened up another question: did they give away just the Von Hayes figure, or did they give away other players too? Another question I had: was there another sponsor besides Kenner for this giveaway? Usually with a giveaway like this, theres a co-sponsor. Like the 2000 Hot Wheels Cars that had Chrylser/Jeep and the 2005 Burrell/Wagner Mcfarlane SportsPicks that had PowerAde as their co-sponsor. But searching Phillies Starting Lineups from 1989/90,  I have yet to see one that has sponsor on it. 

Another piece of evidence I found about the Kenner giveaway was a report of a Mike Schmidt figure that was obtained on May 26, 1990, Mike Schmidt Tribute Night. From what I was told it was given out at the Vet and has the Mike Schmidt Night Station Stamp on it as proof. This figure, though, was the 1989 edition, not the 1990 edition. Why 1989 and not 1990? So with those questions out there, I started doing a little research on Starting Lineups and how they were distributed. Turns out Kenner did send out regional assorted cases of specific teams. I also was able to get a partial photo of the 1989 Phillies assortment box:

This leads to my theory on the 1989/90 Kenner Figure Day Giveaways: The Phillies scheduled the 1989 Kenner Figure Giveaway and ordered team assortment cases from them. As with every giveaway the Phillies do, especially kids' giveaways, the Phillies had a bunch of cases left over. These days, the Phillies sell leftovers at charity events like the ALS Phestival, or like a more recent trend, they give them away for free with the purchase of a yearbook. Back then they also had end-of-season sales, but sometimes they would do more than one giveaway day for the same item. In 1991, I attended a game in which all kids received a wallet watch that was actually a giveaway from the previous week. So it looks like with the Kenner figures, they added the same giveaway in 1990 and gave away the leftovers from 1989. Then for the Mike Schmidt Tribute Night, they cherry picked the Schmidt figures from the cases they had leftover from the 1990 giveaway, and distributed them to kids at the Mike Schmidt Booth. This is just my theory, but I think this is likely how it went down. If anyone was at either of those games or has any concrete information on this giveaway, please email me or tweet me.

Update: 

Reader Jack (@PhilEagFlySixer on twitter) has once again stepped up and shed some light on a Phillies giveaway mystery. Here's what he remembers about the Kenner Starting Lineups Giveaways, and which players were given out:

I was the '89 game. I was a few months shy of my ninth birthday at the time, so my memory may not be the most clear on this, but I believe Schmidt and Hayes were the only figures given out that day. It was a Saturday afternoon NBC Game of the Week, or at least it was supposed to be. The start of the game was delayed close to three hours due to rain and I recall a message on the scoreboard saying that because of the lengthy rain delay, NBC was dropping the telecast. As you can probably imagine, the game was very sparsely attended, with many people figuring they weren't going to get the game in. I would say few of the figures were given out that day. (The game did eventually start, but they only made it through the top of the fifth inning. Fortunately, the Phillies had built up an 8-0 lead and got themselves a rain-shortened victory)

Anyway, I found a Phillies Starting Lineup checklist for 1989. Aside from Schmidt and Hayes, the other figures for that season were Steve Bedrosian, Juan Samuel, Phil Bradley, Milt Thompson, and Chris James. I was a pretty avid Starting Lineup collector back then, and I remember not seeing any Phillies besides Schmidt and Hayes in stores until much later in the season. Perhaps there was some delay in releasing the figures of the other players. Interestingly, Hayes was the only one of those players who was still a Phillie by the time the '89 season ended. Bradley and Thompson had been traded the previous offseason, Bedrosian, Samuel, and James were all traded during the season (but were still with the Phils when the figures were given out), and Schmidt retired.

Thanks again for the help Jack!

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Update on J-Roll T-Shirt

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Back on April 17th, I asked for help from Phillies fans in identifying this Jimmy Rollins T-shirt that was given away in the early 2000s. Well a few days ago @PhilEagFlySixer left a comment on that post and gave me the info I was looking for on this t-shirt. 

From @PhilEagFlySixer:

Missed this post when you first made it. Not sure if you've gotten the info or if anyone else has passed it along, but I believe this was given away on August 26, 2001. I remember it was a Sunday giveaway, and 2001 was the last season my family had the Sunday plan before switching over to our current 17-game plan the following year. Checking the giveaways you listed, the September 2 giveaway was a winter cap and September 23 was fan appreciation day. August 26 was listed as a Phillies t-shirt, and I'm fairly certain this was the shirt they made for the occasion in an attempt to capitalize on the strong rookie season Rollins was having

Thanks for the info Jack! If anyone has any more info on any giveaways that are not updated, all help would be appreciated. Feel free to reach me on Twitter or email at PhilliesSGA@gmail.com.

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

1983 Nostalgia Night Postcard Giveaway - No. 3

Friday, May 3, 2013

As I said on April 5, I will be revealing a new 1983 Nostalgia Night Postcard Set for every home Friday game just as they did in 1983. This week's "great players" postcard features four Phillies catching greats: Bob Boone, Stan Lopata, Andy Seminick, and Bo Diaz. The "great moments" postcard features Pitcher Art Mahaffey. Also included is a trivia card.

Know your Phillies pins – 1980 Press Pin vs. 1981 Season Ticket Holder Gift

1980 World Series Press Pin

1981 Phillies Season Ticket Holder Gift

Wednesday, April 24, 2013

When the World Series rolls around each fall, members of the press who are covering the event are given a press pin as gift. The history of press pins dates all the way back to 1911, and the Baseball Hall of Fame even has a display dedicated to them. The pins themselves are expertly-crafted works of art sometimes – and other times not so much.

The 1980 World Series press pin for journalists covering the games at Veterans Stadium was very nice – it featured a replica of The Vet with a circle dangling from it that had a cracked liberty bell on the front and the Phillie Phanatic on the back. This is a pretty desirable press pin that routinely sells for $50-$80 on eBay. 

Some collectors and people looking to cash in on their Phillies pins may not realize that the pins they own or are trying to sell aren’t actually press pins but season ticket holder gifts from 1981. The Phillies have been giving season ticket holders who pay early some type of gift since the 1970s. In 1981, season ticket holders of plans F through I received a 1980 World Series lapel pin. The Phillies stated in their 1981 ticket brochure that "this pin was originally made in limited quantity for members of the press and media." They’re similar to the true press pins, but not the same. The original press pin given to members of the media was put together so that the Liberty Bell side faced out when worn. The season ticket holder version has the Phillie Phanatic facing out when worn. It's not huge difference, but they are different. A press pin collector may think they have an original press pin, but if the Phanatic is facing out, it’s actually an STH gift and was not from a member of the media.

Excerpt from the Phillies 1981 Season Ticket Brochure.

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Phillies Major & Minor League Promotions Preview for 4/22-4/28

Monday, April 22, 2013

It's another dismal week in the giveaway department as the only real highlight, if you want to call it that, is a MLB Network Sling Bag. Other than that the Phillies have their second Dollar Dog Night of the season tonight, and the first Business Persons Special of the year on 4/25.

The Minor League teams also have nothing special going on this week in regards to giveaways. Both the IronPigs and the BlueClaws are away for the majority of this week. The Reading Fightin Phils have two fireworks night this Friday and Saturday. Then they give away a "Fightin Phils Team Baseball Card Poster" to the first 2500 kids 14 & under, and Chocolate Baseball Gloves to the first 1000 kids 14 & under. 

You know its a rough giveaway week when the highlights are a sling bag and a piece of chocolate shaped like a baseball glove. Have a good week, Go Phils!

Phillies Major and Minor League Promotions for April 22nd to April 28th:

• Monday, 4/22 - Phillies Dollar Dog Night (All fans)
• Wednesday, 4/24 - Phillies MLB Network Sling Bag (All fans)
• Thursday, 4/25 - Phillies Business Person Special (All fans)
• Friday, 4/26 - Fightin Phils Fireworks Night
• Saturday, 4/27 -  Fightin Phils Fireworks Night
• Sunday, 4/28 - Fightin Phils Team baseball Card Poster (1st 2500 kids 14 &under)
• Sunday, 4/28 - Fightin Phils Chocolate Baseball Gloves (1st 1000 kids 14 & under)

Phillies Tickets - IronPigs Tickets -  BlueClaws Tickets - Fightin Phils Tickets

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Happy 35th Birthday Phillie Phanatic! Twitter Giveaways Tonight!

It's a little early for a celebration, seeing that the Phillie Phanatic's actual birthday isn't until Thursday. But the Phillies have had a tradition of celebrating the Phanatic's birthday on the Sunday before or after his actual birthday for as long as I can remember.

I'm going to be running a few Phillie Phanatic Birthday Twitter Retweet Contests. Just follow the rules tweeted to be entered. To enter you must be a follower first. All winners will be announced tonight, unless the requirements for a giveaway are not reached. Once the requirements are met, whenever that is, that prize will be given away.

Included in tonights giveaways will be a 2013 Phillie Phanatic ATV Bobblehead.

All I ask of the winner is that you please tweet when you receive your item. Sorry, this contest is open to US residents only. Good luck!

UPDATE:

2013 Phanatic ATV mini Bobblehead Contest Rules:

• Must be a follower
• Must retweet the contest tweet
• When I reach 150 followers and the contest tweet has at least 35 retweets, the winner will be picked randomly at random.org.
• If there is no winner tonight the contest will go on till I reach 150 followers.
• If you won another contest from me, you can still win again since the winner is picked randomly.
• The winner will receive the bobblehead pictured above.
• Thanks for following me, and GOOD LUCK!

Update 2:

All giveaway contests are over for tonight. Thanks to everyone who participated and retweeted tonight, all the winners have been announced on my twitter, @PhilliesSGA. Have a good night, Go Phils!

Phanatic of the Month Bobblehead - May - Mother's Day

Saturday, April 20, 2013

On Friday the Phillies released the second bobblehead in their new "Phanatic of the Month" series. On Friday they had two endcaps stocked with about ten bobbleheads on each. I was also at the store earlier today and they were restocking, but I didn't see many people buying any. They will likely sell out in the next week or so but I don't think as fast as the Easter Phanatic.

In my post two weeks ago I gave you a preview of what this bobblehead would look like and it is dead on. The only thing I wasn't able to nail down was the "I Love Mom" t-shirt the Phanatic is wearing and the "World's Best Mom" trophy. Overall this bobblehead is well done as far the details are concerned. All of the ones I looked over seemed to have a problem here or there, whether it be chips on the paint or the flowers being bent. It's just the nature of collecting bobbleheads that you're going to have to deal with some issues.

Below is a photo gallery of the new bobblehead and a preview of June's bobblehead:

After seeing the bobblehead, I still really don't like it that much. I originally gave it a D when I looked over the silhouette and I think I'll stick with that. It's just kind of cheesy to me. But I bought one, so who's the sucker? This guy! I stand by my original statement from March that they should do a Phoebe Phanatic. I'm not sure if there are licensing issues or anything, but I would like to see it happen next year. 

Going forward there are no surprises about what any other "Phanatic of the Month" bobbleheads will look like. The silhouettes in the advertisement they released really ruined any element of surprise for this series, which is disappointing. If they do another series like this, which they likely will at the rate these are selling, they really need to think outside the box. These cookie-cutter, holiday-themed bobbleheads are already getting old. Next up, in June we'll be seeing a Phanatic Father's Day golfing bobblehead as the silhouette pictured shows. 

One other thing, off topic, the Phillies are releasing their usual "Pin of the Month" and in addition to that it seems they're putting out a "Phanatic Pin of the Month" to go along with the monthly bobbleheads. Photos are below, along with a few other pins they just released at the Majestic Store. If you're into collecting pins, the Majestic Store has exclusives all season long so definitely check it out.

Click to Enlarge 

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

1983 Nostalgia Night Postcard Giveaway - No. 2

Friday, April 19, 2013

As I said on April 5, I will be revealing a new 1983 Nostalgia Night Postcard Set for every home Friday game just as they did in 1983. This week's "great players" postcard features three Phillies pitching greats: Grover Alexander, Robin Roberts, and Steve Carlton. The "great moments" postcard features Dick Sisler and Del Ennis, who helped lead the 1950 Phillies to the World Series. Also included is a trivia card.

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

The History of the Phillies Blood Drive: Giving Blood Meets Giveaways

Thursday, April 18, 2013

In 2005, the Phillies and the American Red Cross teamed up to start an annual blood drive. It’s a great cause,  and the Phillies – with the help of their fans – have donated more than 10,000 pints of blood since the event began. In addition to the annual blood drive during the season, the Phillies and the Red Cross have held occasional holiday blood drives during the winter. 

As a token of their appreciation for the blood donations, the Phillies give all donors a gift. The first four years’ gifts were variants of stadium giveaways sponsored by the American Red Cross and consisted of one figurine, which I talked about earlier in the week, and three bobbleheads:

• 2006 – Ryan Howard "NL Rookie of the Year," featuring a home plate in front of Howard
• 2007 – Cole Hamels in the gray road jersey.
• 2008 – Jimmy Rollins, also in the gray road jersey

These are all very desirable for Phillies bobblehead collectors. On eBay, the most recent Ryan Howard sold for $77.88 but I've seen them go for as high as $150 in the past. One Cole Hamels sold on eBay recently, and an offer was accepted by the seller for less than $160. I'd put the value right now in the $130 range, give or take $10. The last of the blood drive bobbleheads, Jimmy Rollins, most recently sold on eBay for $43.79. That seems about right for this one. I've seen some sell for less, and when they were first released some went in the $75 range, but I don't remember seeing anything higher than that. The Phillies bobblehead market, as with their other merchandise, fluctuates based on how well the team is performing at the time.

Since 2009, the American Red Cross has not sponsored any of the Phillies’ stadium giveaways. As a result, the quality of gifts for blood donors has gone down – no more variant bobbleheads or figurines as gifts. A Phillies print was given away in 2009, followed by three years of t-shirts (Chase Utley-2010, Shane Victorino-2011, and Carlos Ruiz-2012). They’re still nice gifts though, and the biggest incentive for blood donors is knowing they’re helping to save lives. For information about upcoming local blood drives, visit http://www.redcrossblood.org/pennjersey.

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

PhilliesSGA Unsolved Mysteries

"For every mystery, there is someone, somewhere, who knows the truth. Perhaps...it's you." - Robert Stack, Unsolved Mysteries 

---

Wednesday, April 17, 2013

This will be the first post of what will likely be many of its type in the future. I have some giveaways, and photos of giveaways, for which I don't have all the information. So I will be entreating the Phillies Phaithful to help me with some Unsolved Mysteries! If you're under the age of…oh,  30? I'd say you're likely not too familiar with the TV series Unsolved Mysteries, hosted by Robert Stack. But when I was like 9 years old, Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue 911 were some entertaining shows, ok, in hindsight, those shows were awful and I'm a tiny bit ashamed to admit that I actually looked forward to watching them. But come on, ghosts, UFOs, miracles, murders! Unsolved Mysteries had it all!  And now I'm going to stop justifying my fondness for Unsolved Mysteries episodes from 1990. 

In this week’s episode of PhilliesSGA Unsolved Mysteries (cue the eerie music), I have a Modell's Sporting Goods sponsored Jimmy Rollins "Rollins Steal Company" T-shirt that was a kids’ giveaway. I believe this was given out in the early 2000s. After checking Baseball-Reference.com, I found that in 2001, Jimmy Rollins tied with Juan Pierre for first place in the NL in stolen bases with 46, so I think this is a giveaway from 2002, but I don't know for sure. If you have any information on this giveaway, write to us (or tweet us, because it’s 2013) at PhilliesSGA Unsolved Mysteries...you need not give your name...

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Flea Market Finds: Bobby Abreu Edition

Monday, April 15, 2013

With the great weather this past weekend, I decided to do a little browsing at some local flea markets. I wasn't alone in thinking this was a good idea, as they were packed with people. I usually go out with $25 in my pocket and try to get the most bang for my buck.

The first thing I stumbled upon was a Philadelphia Wings Dallas Eliuk bobblehead. It was given away to the first 5,000 fans on 2/22/2002. I'm not an avid Wings fan, nor do I know much about lacrosse, but the asking price was $2. Sold. I pretty much won't turn down a Philadelphia-related bobblehead that's $5 or less, and Dallas Eliuk was no exception. 

Next I found a seller who had a bunch old sports memorabilia from the 1980s to the early 2000s. Most of it was junk, but he did have a huge binder filled with old press photos. I don't collect many photos and didn't have a clue about the value of them, but this could've been a goldmine for someone who did. When I opened the binder, I knew right away I was buying at least one photo. The first photo was of the Phillie Phanatic, wearing a poncho, and it was signed "Love, The Phillie Phanatic." I have a few Dave Raymond (the original Phanatic) signed items, and have seen many in the past, so I knew right away it was authentic. It was very unique and I had to have it, so I offered the guy $5. Shot down. "All signed photos are $10," he said. After looking the photo over I noticed some ink from the signature had stuck to the plastic sleeve it was in. I brought this to his attention, but he replied, "It still looks good, you're not finding that anywhere else, $10." Good point, sold. 

Last but surely not least, I purchased one more item from Mr.$10. I saw a very familiar 2005 Bobby Abreu figurine red box. The Bobby Abreu figurine is one of the most hideous , easy-to-find giveaways in existence. I see these things all the time. But anytime I come across one, I open it up and look it over. Why? Well, on 8/13/2005 the Phillies and the American Red Cross hosted the first annual Phillies Fan Blood Drive. Each year, the Phillies and the American Red Cross give fans who donate blood a gift. The gift in 2005 was a red jersey variant Bobby Abreu figurine for the first 1000 donors. A lucky few received signed red jersey variants, though I've never seen one. I've seen two of the variants on eBay in recent years, and if I remember correctly they both sold for around $100. That's why I always look inside the box of one of the worst giveaways in Phillies history. As soon as I picked up the box, Mr.$10 yelled "$5! Take him home! $5!" I opened the box and saw...red jersey Bobby Abreu. "Sold!" I yelled to him. "I knew he was going home with you!" he replied. I may have lost the battle in the beginning, but I won the war for sure. 

• 2002 Philadelphia Wings Dallas Eliuk Bobblehead - $2
• 1980s Signed Phillie Phanatic Photo - $10
• 2005 Red Jersey Bobby Abreu Figurine - $5
• Miscellaneous Pretzel - $1
• Total spent: $18

Winner, winner, chicken dinner.

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Phillies Major & Minor League Promotions Preview for 4/15-4/21

Saturday, April 13, 2013

Heres your weekly Promotions Preview for April 15 - April 21. Its a pretty weak schedule for giveaways this week, and things won't be heating up on the giveaway front till May. The Phillies kick off a seven-day home stretch with a 2013 Schedule Magnet for all fans on 4/18. The Phillies will have their annual "salute to Jackie Robinson" night on 4/19. With the new biopic 42 getting great reviews, this salute to Jackie will likely get more attention then in years past. The Phillies wrap up their promotion week celebrating the Phillie Phanatic's 35th Birthday. All kids 14 and under will receive a Phillie Phanatic Time Travelin' DVD.

It's extremely bare in the promotions department this week in the Minor Leagues. The shining moment of the week will be the Lehigh Valley IronPigs John Mayberry Jr. Pint Glass giveaway on 4/20. They follow that up with a IronPigs Knit Cap giveaway on Sunday. The Lakewood BlueClaws will have their FOURTH Schedule Magnet giveaway of the season on 4/18...I guess they're making sure every fan on the Jersey Shore has a schedule magnet on their refrigerator. The Reading Fightin Phils have "Baseballtown Collector's Postcard" Night on 4/15 and 4/16 for the first 500 adults. The IronPigs and BlueClaws will both host fireworks nights next weekend; check below for details. As always, tickets links are at the bottom of this post.

Phillies Major and Minor League Promotions for April 15th to April 21th:

• Monday, 4/15 - Fightin Phils "Baseballtown Postcards" (All fans 15 & older)
• Tuesday, 4/16 - Fightin Phils "Baseballtown Postcards" (All fans 15 & older)
• Thursday, 4/18 - Phillies 2013 Schedule Magnet (All fans)
• Thursday, 4/18 - BlueClaws 2013 Schedule Magnet (First 2000 fans)
• Friday, 4/19 - Phillies Jackie Robinson Salute
• Friday, 4/19 - IronPigs/BlueClaws Friday Fireworks
• Saturday, 4/20 -  IronPigs John Mayberry Pint Glass (First 3000 fans 18 & older)
• Sunday, 4/21 - Phillies Phanatic Time Travelin' DVD  (All fans 14 & under)
• Sunday, 4/21 - IronPigs Knit Cap (First 3000 fans 18 & older)
• Sunday, 4/21 - BlueClaws Kids Eat Free (Kids 12 & under)

Phillies Tickets - IronPigs Tickets - BlueClaws Tickets - Fightin Phils Tickets

©PhilliesSGA - 2013

Pictures and Ticket Brochures added

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Saturday, April 13, 2013

I've been gradually adding more pictures to the Giveaways section. I'm currently working on the 1990s and 2000s. So far 2008-2013 are up to date, with some early years like 1979 and 1983 also done. I don't have a picture for every item, but the ones I do have will be updated in the next month. 

I've also updated the ticket brochures section. This may not be interesting to everyone, but I've added all the brochures I have. If you have any extra ticket brochures, or other giveaway-related items, please email me at PhilliesSGA@gmail.com.

One of the better brochures that the Phillies sent out was the 1988 Ticket Brochure. This brochure reads like a comic and features Richie Ashburn and the Phillie Phanatic talking about the upcoming season. I've included it here for your viewing pleasure. Have a good weekend! Go Phils!

©PhilliesSGA - 2013