The Oakland A's promotional schedules in recent years have been lacking. There have been bobblehead days here and there, a few fireworks or drone nights, but the giveaways haven't impressed many fans of late. In what could be their final season of baseball in the Bay Area, the A's promo schedule actually looks kind of cool.
The first bobblehead giveaway comes on Friday, June 21st against the Minnesota Twins, and it features Hall of Famer Satchel Paige. While Paige is considered one of the best pitchers of all time, he didn't make his MLB debut until the age of 41 in 1948 with the Cleveland ballclub after spending 16 seasons dominating the Negro Leagues. Paige, at the age of 58, made his final big-league appearance with the Kansas City A's back in 1965 and tossed three scoreless innings, allowing just one hit and striking out one.
The 1974 World Series reunion will come two days later and also include a replica jersey.
July features bobblehead days two and three, and they are of two more former A's greats, Rollie Fingers and José Canseco. The Fingers giveaway is on Sunday, July 7th when the A's take on the Baltimore Orioles, while the Canseco bobble is on Saturday, July 20th when the A's take on the Angels.
The fourth bobblehead day is on Sunday, August 18th, and will feature Vida Blue when the A's and San Francisco Giants square off. Blue played for both clubs in his 17 year career.
The day before will be the A's yearly Hall of Fame induction ceremony. The inductees have yet to be announced, but the list of candidates included: Canseco, Coco Crisp, Mark Ellis, Dick Green, Dave Henderson, Ramón Hernández, Ken Holtzman, Rick Honeycutt, Tim Hudson, Mike Moore, Mark Mulder, Dwayne Murphy, Mike Norris, John “Blue Moon” Odom, Tony Phillips, Terry Steinbach, Miguel Tejada, Bob Welch, and Barry Zito.
Friday, September 6th has an interesting giveaway for Latin and Hispanic Heritage Night, with a futból jersey as the giveaway. Presumably they'll be green and gold and would fit right in at an Oakland Roots or Soul game.
During the final weekend series of the season, and perhaps ever, the A's will be giving away a Rickey Henderson bobblehead on Friday, September 20th when they play the New York Yankees. While they won't be the final games played at the Coliseum, having the Yankees as the second-to-last opponent for the A's with arguably the best player in franchise history being involved at least in bobblehead form is a pretty good touch.
Henderson was traded to the Yankees from the A's back in 1984, then back to Oakland in 1989. As an added bonus, maybe they can bring out Eric Plunk, who was included in both trades.
The A's wrap up their home schedule (with no giveaways) from September 24-26 against the World Series champion Texas Rangers.
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