Orioles (Affilate) Bobblehead of the Week- Bowie Baysox Mystery Bobblehead

Recently, the Bowie Baysox (AA affiliate of the Orioles) had a pretty awesome bobblehead giveaway. They decided to hand out 500 random bobbleheads from their past bobblehead giveaways from over the previous five or six years. Essentially, it was a cleaning out your closet type of thing, but it gave their fans another opportunity to pick up a bobblehead they missed the first time around.

I've pretty much picked up all of their player bobbles from the past 3-4 seasons, and I don't care much about non player bobbles, but they advertised that some older bobbleheads would also be handed out, so I made the trip to Bowie, hoping for the best.

To avoid people specifically targeting any specific bobbleheads, the staff had placed all the giveaways in bags, but luckily they were of the translucent plastic variety, so you got an idea of who you might be getting. I snagged an unfamiliar shaped box and hoped for the best.

I realized pretty quickly that I selected a bobblehead that would be new to me as I didn't have any that they gave away in 2007 since that was before I got back into Minor League Baseball.

My box had pictures of three possible bobbleheads. In order of who I hoped was in my box, there was...

 Nick Markakis (can't go wrong with one of the better O's from recent years)

 Erik Bedard, who was briefly an Orioles Ace

  

And Chris Ray, who was a good closer for some time, but was the least exciting of the trio

Without further ado, my bobblehead was....

 Chris Ray, of course

I'm still happy to add a new affiliate bobblehead to my collection, but it was a mild letdown considering my other options.

The bobble actually looks reasonably like Chris; here's the best comparison I can offer.

 

 You can at least see the resemblance.

Here's a few other shots of the bobblehead, in Dodgerbobble style.

Chris sure is happy to have a bobblehead, isn't he?

From the right...

And the left...

 And this one's for the laaadies. As if any women read my blog.

Last week I promised to announce the winner of the Adam Jones bobblehead today, but I'm gonna do it tomorrow. That gives everyone one more day to comment and enter. Good luck to you all!

"Orioles" Bobblehead of the Week- Nolan Reimold

Only one week into my Orioles Bobblehead of the Week (OBW) series, I decided that I was going stretch my definition of what constitutes an Orioles Bobblehead. I consider all of my bobbleheads from the Orioles and their minor league affiliates to be in the Oriole family. Without further delay...

 

Here's a Nolan Reimold bobblehead that was given away by the AA Bowie Baysox on July 22, 2010. I figured that it was appropriate to show Nolan's bobble this week since he is having a great spring training so far. Oh yeah, and he's one of Kalina's favorite players. 

Nolan is definitely on the bubble of the O's roster this year, but his performance through the first two weeks has only helped his chances of heading north with the team.  

It's very fitting that the Baysox made a bobblehead commemorating Nolan's time in Bowie since he led them to the Eastern League playoffs in 2008.  He also made the regular and post-season Eastern League All-Star teams that year, and had possibly the greatest single-game performance in Baysox history during those '08 Playoffs. On September 3, 2008, Nolan hit three home runs and had 8 RBI against the Akron Aeros, the Indians AA affiliate. That date happens to be my birthday, and one of my presents from Kalina was Baysox playoff tickets, so we were in the first row behind the Baysox dugout for Nolan's fireworks display. It was AMAZING.

 

 The Orioles also gave away a Reimold bobblehead last season as part of the OF mini-bobble set. Unfortunately, the giveaway date was May 26, exactly two weeks after Nolan had been shipped to AAA Norfolk. 

 

 

Many fans' bobbleheads were also broken off the base when they opened them up due to insufficient styrofoam protection. I remember that there was a bunch of separated bobble bodies and bases left with all the trash at the end of the game. Luckily, only one of my two was broken and it was fairly easily fixed with some super glue. Now if his head angle could only be adjusted. Any bobble collectors out there have any suggestions from me?