Wednesday, January 25, 2012

Dodger Bobblehead Variants

Matt Kemp gold glove
Tonight we're going to take a look at some of the variant Dodger bobbleheads that have been produced over the years. These are the bobbleheads that I know about. If there are any variants that I am missing, please comment below. 

With help from David at Bobbles Galore, and some current Ebay auctions, I'm gonna give as much info as I can and show as many pictures as possible.
                              From BobblesGalore
We'll start with the Fred McGriff Gold Bat bobblehead. In 2003, 500 McGriff bobbleheads were made with gold bats to commemorate his upcoming 500th homerun. The only problem was the Crime Dog never got to number 500, finishing his career with 493 homers. Some of these were given away to Dodger employees and many were donated to charity.You see these on Ebay every once in a while.


In 2004, Eric Gagne was honored with his second bobblehead in two years. This one was made to celebrate his 2003 NL Cy Young Award. The variation on this bobblehead was an all pewter version. I'm not sure how many were made at the time, but these were given away to some fans and also sold at the Top of the Park gift shop at Dodger Stadium.


From Ebay
2005's Cesar Izturis variant bobblehead had a gold glove. This was in honor of his 2004 Gold Glove Award. This is another one that pops up on the Bay every now and then.


A variant bobblehead I had heard about a few times but hadn't seen until recently was the 2006 Fernando Valenzuela silver base bobblehead. There were only 500 of these made.


From Ebay
The 2009 Curtain Call Manny Ramirez bobblehead was one of the more popular bobbleheads given away, but  did you know they made 99 of them in gold? I need to see this one!


In 2010 the Dodgers started holding contests on Twitter. They gave away many prizes including two bobblehead variations. The first was the Andre Ethier Silver bat bobble to commemorate his 2009 Silver Slugger Award. The other was the Matt Kemp Catch At The Wall gold glove bobblehead to commemorate his 2009 Gold Glove Award. The first time I saw one of these was on Plaschke Thy Sweater Is Argyle. Greg won his on Twitter and later got it autographed. The Kemp is my personal favorite.


From BobblesGalore

From BobblesGalore
The Dodgers gave away six bobbleheads in 2011. Three of them had variants. The first was Clayton Kershaw's backwards K bobblehead. The second was Don Mattingly's "Donnie Baseball" bobblehead and the third was Duke Snider's "Duke of Flatbush" bobblehead. I'm not sure how many they produced.


From BobblesGalore

From BobblesGalore
Like I said earlier, I may be missing some variants. If anyone has additional information or pictures, feel free to comment below or email me. I would love to update this.

11 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. Being a collector myself I cant believe I have never got ONE of these variants.Awesome

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  3. I didn't get one either, but believe me, I tried.

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  4. Wow! Fred McGriff was a Dodger? Next thing you'll tell me was that Andruw Jones played for us also.

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  5. Did you know George Sherrill was a Dodger?>

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  6. Sherrill? I don't know that name. Is that a chick ball player?

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  7. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  8. http://www.ebay.com/itm/DODGERS-CLAYTON-KERSHAW-2011-GOLD-GLOVE-CY-YOUNG-BOBBLEHEAD-READ-DESCRIPTION-/320951617477?pt=US_Baseball_Fan_Shop&hash=item4aba3507c5

    Is this a legitimate variant or did some dude just paint Kershaw's glove gold?

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  9. The Valenzuela silver base was only given to employees in 2006 season since we weren't allowed to have any of the give aways

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  10. The Cy Young Gagne was a variant that was produced in pewtwer.

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