by Amaury Pi Gonzalez

OAKLAND–When I first visited the Mob Museum, in Reno, Nevada, I saw something that was funny and in a way laughable. A very nice historical museum documenting the mob connections for decades with the gambling business in the State of Nevada. As I walked into the souvenir shop, right after a self-paced tour, there it was, for sale, bobbleheads of Al Capone, the most famous gangster in history. It didn’t have any statistics of how many people he personally killed, or ordered to kill, but it didn’t needed that, everybody knows the story. However, when I saw it, I realized, they make bobbleheads of everybody these days, I mean, if they sell bobbleheads of the real Scarface?

Today in baseball, teams promotions include giveaway of players bobbleheads, it has always been a popular promotion. On August 18, the Oakland Athletics, the first 15,000 fans that enter the Oakland Coliseum, prior to the game between the A’s and the Dodgers will received a Mark McGwire Bobblehead. It is believed that the first major league team to offer a bobblehead as a giveaway were the San Francisco Giants, on May 9, 1999, to the first 35,000 fans walking into Candlestick Park, a little statue of Willie Mays.1999 was the last season the Giants played at Candlestick Park. I was there and I do have that one among my souvenirs. A Willie Mays, bobblehead, one of the best baseball players in history, many consider Mays the best ever.

I covered Mark McGwire during his rookie season at Oakland, 1987 when he hit 49 home runs, drove in 118 runs and won the American League Rookie of the Year. A tall, and skinny young man then, and even prior to that year, I remember 1984, covering a game at Candlestick Park between the Olympic teams of Japan and the United States. The USA Olympic team had stars such as Will Clark, Barry Larkin, and Mark McGwire on the roster, the team was considered to be the greatest amateur team ever put on the diamond by the United States. This talent laden.

Amaury Pi Gonzalez is the TV Spanish voice for the Angels and the radio Spanish voice for the A’s and does News and Commentary at http://www.sportsradioservice.com