The Best Major League Baseball Giveaways of 2018

Written by Zeke Perez Jr. 

The most wonderful day of the year is here again… It’s Opening Day and Major League Baseball is back! 162 games of America’s pastime begin now, and teams have organized some great promotions to treat the fans at the 81 games they host. The always popular ‘Star Wars Night’ promos are back throughout the league, as are ‘Superhero Games’, a slew of bobblehead giveaways, and several anniversaries.
 
I looked around the league at every single giveaway each of the 30 teams are planning this year.  Here are my picks for the best giveaway items for each MLB team in 2018!

• Before getting to each of the teams, I wanted to point out a big trend this year. For their Star Wars giveaways, several teams are going with Han Solo items. The Angels are giving out a Han Solo version of their rally monkey (May 18th). A bunch of other teams are giving out player bobbleheads that riff on the name (i.e. Kyle ‘Han Seago’ Seager for the Mariners, Hawk Harrelson’s ‘Hawk Solo’ for the White Sox, and the ‘Han Gallo’ Joey Gallo bobble for the Rangers, just to name a few).
• Ichiro joined the exclusive 3,000 hit club in 2016. Albert Pujols starts 2018 right on the verge of 3,000, coming in with 2,968 career hits. The Los Angeles Angels are celebrating with a Pujols bobblehead featuring a countdown counter in the base on April 6th.
• The reigning, defending, undisputed World Series champion Houston Astros will start the year celebrating their title. Fans will receive a replica World Series trophy (April 6th, Home Opener), a replica World Series ring (April 7th), and a George Springer World Series MVP bobblehead (April 14th) to kick off the title defense.
• The Oakland A’s will commemorate their Hispanic Heritage game with a sugar skull bobblehead on September 9th.
• Toronto-native Drake might want to be in attendance for the Toronto Blue Jays April 18th game. The team is celebrating the 25th anniversary of their back-to-back World Series championships with a commemorative sweatshirt. Yeah. Going baaaaack to back.
• Atlanta great Chipper Jones is going into the Hall of Fame. With the purchase of a Hall of Fame games ticket package, they’ll be going beyond the usual bobblehead, they’ll be giving away an awesome and unique mug made from a baseball bat (July 29th) and a HOF plaque replica (August 10th) to honor Chipper.
  • Honorable Mention: Okay… Bobbleheads are still cool. And, in an awesome mashup giveaway, the Atlanta Braves are using their September 4th game against the Boston Red Sox to give out a vintage Boston Braves Babe Ruth bobblehead. A unique way to commemorate the history of the franchise.
• Anytime there is a Bob Uecker giveaway, it’s automatically making my list of best giveaways. Last year the Milwaukee Brewers gave out a Uecker Magic 8-Ball. This year, it’s a talking bottle opener on August 5th. Get ready for some hilarious quips!
  • Honorable Mention: The Brew Crew also has a ‘Travis Shaw: Mayor of Ding Dong City’ bobblehead slated for May 27th. That gets recognition for name alone.
• Pitching great Bob Gibson had the best season of his ridiculously incredible career 50 years ago. In 1968, he won the Cy Young, the NL MVP, set a record low ERA of 1.12 (still the best of the modern era), led the NL in strikeouts, won a Gold Glove, was named an All-Star, and then threw 17 strikeouts in game one of the World Series. The St. Louis Cardinals will be celebrating the ‘Year of the Pitcher’ with a replica Gibson pitcher’s mound rubber on May 18th. 

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• You can style and profile on rainy days with the baseball cap-shaped umbrella the Chicago Cubs are giving away on May 22nd.
• Apparently Hawaiian shirts this year are the gnomes of a few years ago. Teams are giving them out like hotcakes. Many are doing it, but few look as good as those of the Arizona Diamondbacks, sprawled with cacti, AZ state flags, and D-Backs logos. Get yours on June 17th.  
• One man. Five words. A baseball icon. On April 24th, the Los Angeles Dodgers are handing out alarm clocks that will wake you up to Vin Scully’s signature call.
• Back in 1984, the San Francisco Giants introduced a mascot: the Crazy Crab. To put it mildly…fans were less than accepting. The whole debacle is featured in an ESPN 30-for-30 short. Watch that immediately. Then get a Crazy Crab scarf on July 7th.
  • It has to be noted that they are holding a Bruce Lee Night on August 28th.
• On September 1st, Cleveland is giving out replicas of their 1948 road jerseys. It is a good looking jersey.
• The Seattle Mariners have loads of good giveaways this year! My personal favorite is that the Mariners are going back to the future on June 30th with a ‘Turn Ahead the Clock’ cap giveaway. ‘Turn Ahead the Clock’ was a promotion started by Seattle in 1998, where teams suited up in imagined ‘futuristic’ uniforms. That mostly constituted very large logos and altered colors. Revisiting the promo 20 years later should be a nostalgic blast.
  • Honorable Mention: 4,000 lucky fans will get soil from Safeco Field on September 27th.
• The Miami Marlins were a bit slow to roll out their promotions this year. Even now, only a few giveaway dates exist and the details for those are scarce. They will be giving out a mystery ‘celebrity bobblehead’ on July 29th. I’ve had fun trying to guess which Miami celebrity it could be. Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson? Dan Marino? Pitbull?!? Time will tell…Dale!
• The New York Mets are back with another Noah Syndergaard ‘Thor’ bobblehead on August 4th. When Marvel excitement is high and you’ve got a pitcher nicknamed Thor, you roll with it.
• This one is different! On June 24th, kids at the Washington Nationals game will get a Max Scherzer eye patch. Scherzer has two different colored eyes, so the reversible eye patch will feature a cartoon eye, with a blue one on one side and a brown one on the other.

• Marylanders love their state flag (as a Coloradan, I know that feeling). The Baltimore Orioles will be giving out ‘Maryland flag script’ replica jerseys on July 14th.
• The San Diego Padres are far-and-away my winners for best giveaways of 2018. For quality. For quantity. All of it! With three different Marvel bobblehead giveaways, Way Back Wednesday giveaways celebrating the 1998 NL Championship season, multiple (creative) hat giveaways, a ton of items to celebrate Trevor Hoffman going into the Hall of Fame, and amazing cultural celebrations, the Padres will leave a lot of fans happy in 2018.
• Kids always get great giveaways, as they should. The Philadelphia Phillies are handing out bucket hats featuring the OG mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, on April 29th.
• Continuing with the ‘kids get the best things’ trend, young fans at the June 29th Pittsburgh Pirates game will get Hulk bobbleheads.
• The Texas Rangers will hand out Joey Gallo bobbleheads with a useable tape measure in the base on June 9th. It is unclear whether the tape measures will extend long enough to measure Gallo home runs.
• You can live a beach life when you get a Tampa Bay Rays boogie board on June 10th.
• The Boston Red Sox have a trio of bobbleheads on June 6th, July 31st, and September 14th. Designs of the ‘Splash’ bobbleheads have not yet been released, but sets are always fun!
• The Cincinnati Reds are getting in on the Funko Pop! craze on July 28th with a Joey Votto Pop!. 

• I may be biased as a Colorado Rockies fan, but they had one of the greatest moments of the 2017 season when Nolan Arenado hit a walk-off home run to complete the cycle on Father’s Day. The Rox captured the pumped up, dirt and blood-covered Nolan in a bobblehead they’ll hand out on July 14th. (You can catch me in line at Coors Field SUPER early that day.)
• Speaking of Coors Field, I have a tiny model of the ballpark and it’s fantastic. Look for desks and shelves in KC to get a lot more awesome on April 14th when the Kansas City Royals give out models of the old Municipal Stadium.
• The Detroit Tigers will ring in the 50th anniversary of their 1968 World Series pennant with a set of four bobbleheads on May 26th, June 2nd, July 7th, and August 25th. The Al Kaline, Bill Freehan, Willie Horton, and Mickey Lolich bobbles (respectively) look great and should be a must-have for Tiger fans.
• Hands down one of the coolest giveaways of the year. So cool, it makes me want to fly to Minnesota just for the game. With the purchase of a theme package, Minnesota Twins fans can receive an inflatable Prince guitar on June 8th. The theme night should prove to be a great celebration of the Minnesota music icon.
• It’s always exciting to see baseball teams pull in inspiration from other sports for their giveaways. The Chicago White Sox will celebrate Cinco de Mayo with ‘Los White Sox’ soccer jerseys. (I guess Los Calcetines Blancos must’ve been too wordy.)
• Like many teams, the New York Yankees will celebrate May the Fourth with a Star Wars Night. They’ll battle the Empire with a bobblehead of Aaron Judge as a Jedi.