When Baseball Promotions Go Wrong

The Pittsburgh Pirates fedora will be given to 25,000 lucky fans.

Major League Baseball has a long history with baseball promotions and giveaway nights.   The great ones outweigh the failures, but ohhh those failures.  Some of the wildest stories surrounding the game can be tied to poorly constructed promotional events.  Do a google search on the ten cent beer night baseball promotions Cleveland did in 1974 and you will lose twenty minutes of your life.  The photos seem shocking, black and white images from a mayhem filled night.  Do a search on Disco Demolotion night.  Unreal.

So let’s take a look at what the Pirates are going to do for one of their promotional nights.  The Pittsburgh Pirates are giving out a Pittsburgh Pirates fedora to the first 25,000 fans who come through the turnstiles at PNC Park.  For some reason I feel as though this is going to be bad.  Really bad.  The fedora isn’t for everyone.  It’s not.  If you think you look good in one, you definently don’t,  but for one night we will see a lot of yinzers rocking the fedora.  A lot of them aren’t going to fit correctly.

And you know what?  The ROOT Sports broadcast will be certain to highlight as many as possible.

We started to think about where the idea to hand out fedoras was created.  The only solution we came up with was this one.

Pirates Marketing Promotional Night Meeting:

The young intern from RMU:   My professor at Bobby Mo said never do a ten cent beer night !  The Indians had to forfeit the game it got so bad!

10 cent beer night was a bad idea. Mental Floss

New Pirates marketing staffer from some random NBA team:  Anything music related is a bad idea—Disco Demolotion Night forced the White Sox to forfeit too!  Or Ball Night like the Dodgers did, that was bad–Raul Mondesi started all that shit.  I think the Dodgers had to forfeit that game too.

The good looking marketing girl:  I think a fedora night would be awesome.

The marketing boss:  Yeh, me too.  Fedora Night it is!  Meeting adjourned

So let me break this down for everyone.  Chicks look hot in fedoras.  See exhibit A:

Hot chicks in fedoras

Guys don’t look hot in fedoras.  See Exhibit B:

Hot guys in fedoras

So…let’s circle back here.  Don’t be Brad Pitt.  Don’t be any of those guys in the second row in the pic above.  As for the game on the field, the Pirates won’t be forced to forfeit.  So it wont be bad for the home team.  Just those of us at the game or watching at home.  Or those people that have to see these around town for years until they end up in the Goodwill Store like those Jason Bay sherseys from years past that litter the backs of homeless people on the North Side.

UPDATE:  In case you missed it, the Pirates had Jose Tabata pimping the fedora in the commercial.  It is an example of perfect casting by the marketing department.  Tabata will certainly be the guy in the second row of results when googling hot guys fedora…

Pimps in fedoras

The Pirates fedora will be the Pittsburgh Pirates promotional item of the year.

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