Any baseball fan will be able to tell you that nothing brings out a crowd quite like a bobblehead night, but the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani bobblehead giveaway was on another level.
A horde of Dodgers fans, Ohtani fans and eBay users reported to Dodger Stadium hours before Thursday’s game against the Cincinnati Reds to ensure they would receive one of the 40,000 bobbleheads being handed out at the gates. Adding to the frenzy were the 1,700 special gray uniform bobbleheads available at random.
Ready for Shohei Ohtani Bobblehead Night presented by Guggenheim? The first 40,000 fans will receive the item. As a special surprise, 1,700 road gray jersey bobbleheads will be randomly mixed in with the giveaway.
🎟: https://t.co/36IUWLzvoH pic.twitter.com/qGiOleDLzJ
— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) May 15, 2024
The hype around Ohtani’s first season with the Dodgers has reached levels rarely seen in baseball, and the line to get into any of the several Dodger Stadium entrances might be the most tangible evidence we get:
Shohei Ohtani bobblehead night at Dodgers Stadium tonight. Gates don’t open for a couple of hours and the line is already crazy pic.twitter.com/L9HedG0AE4
— brandon wenerd (@brandonwenerd) May 16, 2024
The crowd stuck around too, there were naturally some opportunists who took the collectable and ran. The concourses and stands were packed way more than usual at Dodger Stadium, where fans hold a reputation for not filling the seats until the game is well underway.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts summed things up before the game:
“It’s exciting. Shohei certainly creates a stir. I can’t imagine what it’s like outside. It’s good. It’s great for Shohei, it’s good for the Dodgers, it’s going to be a hot-ticket item.”
Roberts wasn’t wrong on that last point. On the eBay side of things, the market was robust before the game was even over. As of Thursday night, there doesn’t appear to be a single bobblehead verifiably from Thursday night available for less than $250.
The demand for the gray uniform bobblehead is even wilder. Here is one such collectible currently selling for more than $1,000 after 17 bids.
If the fans and collectors were expecting the hype to translate to a special night from Ohtani, they were left disappointed. Ohtani went 0-for-2 with a walk in a 7-2 Dodgers loss. He didn’t finish the game either, as the Dodgers had rookie Andy Pages pinch hit for him in the bottom of the ninth inning.
This won’t be the end of the Ohtani collectibles, as the Dodgers are currently scheduled to hand out a second bobblehead, a hat and a shirt later this season after giving him a $700 million contract last offseason.
