63.5- Marketing Mania

[chicoruiz]

"I'm mad at you" said Sandy as he settled into the comfy chair opposite my desk.

"Yeah? Get in line", I replied.

Sandy was Atlantic City's promotion manager, and a guy I generally liked to keep happy. He had pulled some serious miracles keeping fan interest alive through our lean years, and he might be our unsung MVP.

"What have I done to wrong you, Sandy?"

"Well, you traded Johnny Lazer. And now I'm stuck with 30,000 Johnny Lazer T-shirts... 15,000 red ones that say "Lazer Focused" and 15,000 black ones that say "Prepare... The Lazer". Now they're taking up space in my storage area, and I have no earthly use for them."

"Well, I could take a few of them off your hands to wash my car or something."

"Oh no, you don't want to do that... The crappy synthetic material they make those things out would probably scratch the shit out of your car's finish".

"Well, I'll tell you what... I'll call up Vancouver and see if they're interested in them, but I severely doubt that we're going to get full price for them."

"Fair enough... Just to check on something else... I now have ten thousand foam fingers making the "OK" sign and saying "Everything is A-Okyay"... They've been on back order for two years, and now that they're finally here Nisanci's game has gone down the sewer. You're not going to trade him too, are you?"

"Would that I could. I had him DFAed a while ago, and as I expected, there was absolutely no interest. I think he's here for the rest of the season... maybe we can honor him on his last day here and hand them out then. I mean, even he has to know we're not bringing him back next season."

"Okay, then, that's that... Let me ask you about another guy- Ron Phillips. I had a terrific idea for a giveaway- a "Ron Phillips screwdriver". A combination bobble head and tool."

"Um, he's gonna be here, but I'm not sure I can picture a guy working on his car or something with a screwdriver that's got a bobble head on one end. Kind of impractical."

"Ah geez, Chico, these are keepsakes,, not meant to be useful. Crummy synthetic shirts- you sweat in them and smell like a Cossack in 15 minutes. The only time I ever heard one of our giveaways might be useful is what one of our coaches said about the Vandika Zadoyan bobble head."

"Really? What did he say/"

"He said the base of the bobble head was a perfect representation of Zadoyan's range in center field."

[Graham]

Hey, there's always shipping 'em to a third world country. There are kids in the Sudan who think Charlotte's won two championships.

[Knucklehead254]

I'll take the shirts at a discount

[lordtoffee]

They could end up on eBay as a limited edition merch drop