The Wade Blogs: O's Botched Bobblehead, Klinsmann's Car, & BB's 715

O's execs suffered a black eye on Saturday when they had to recall 20,000 Brian Roberts bobbleheads they were supposed to handout against the Texas Rangers due to their hue... let's just say Roberts was sporting a tan. No sooner did the O's pull the plug from the stadium giveaway did the Brian Roberts Bobbleheads start popping up on ebay.

Growing up in Bal'more we had do some additional digging. Depsite reports that "the Orioles were being careful to prevent any of the botched bobbleheads from being acquired by memorabilia collectors" we discovered one auction complete with pic going for 30+ bucks by a guy who claims "he has a special relationship with the manufacturer." We also came across some other Roberts bobbleheads for sale and it is interesting to compare to the Bobblehead of Brian distributed by the Bowie Baysox (the Orioles AA Minor league affliate) just a week before.

The Baltimore Sun grilled Bill Stetka, spokesman for the Orioles, and got him to admit "I have not seen it, but I had it described to me as looking like a Smurf." Well if the O's execs really wanted to go blue they could make it up to O's fans by giving them what they really want... an Anna Benson "Booblehead" doll (get it... booblehead). Her head wouldn't be the only thing bouncing if you know what I mean (for those who are slow chest would bounce too). Considering TheWadeblogs is in tight with Anna's peeps (click to listen to our previous interview with Anna Benson over our audioblogs link) we are seriously thinking of pitching this to Anna's handlers. If you like our "Anna Benson Booblehead" idea let us know (We're thinking of starting a whole line including Jessica Canseco, Morganna "The kissing bandit," etc. etc. ... )

What is the the deal with all of these crazy Booblehead stories... just last week there was this crazy giveway of Tom Cruise bobbleheads involving a CA minor league team. And as we poked around ebay we noticed some other notable sports auctions.

1. Ebay Germany - Not only is Jurgen packing his bags and heading back to the USA, but as it turns out the Germans want to ship off his car as well. Actually during all the hoopla surrounding Germany's 3rd place finish in the World Cup, the Stugartt owner of Jurgen Klinsmann's former car put it up for sale on German ebay. Check out the papers and pictures of the Bug. Despite Klinsmann's pitch "I really wouldn't recommend bidding for that car... it was already completely rusty when I got rid of it" the price for the economical car the always thrifty Klinsman sported during his days a soccer ex-pat in England shot up to over $300,000 before finally settling back down to a more resonable amount of around 30,000 Euros (the pragmatic owner went through and weeded out the crazy bids).

2. Ebay USA - Barry Bonds 715 ball is going up for sale on ebay later this week... the timing of this couldn't be any worse. We actually feel for the guy who caught this ball. Instead of him getting mad money paid to him by the likes of Todd McFarlane (who paid for $5 million for McG's 70th and $500K for Barry's 73rd) this guy opted to forgo the private auction route and put it before the public on ebay but as it so happens it is also the same week Barry's looks to be indicted. It should be interesting to see what it goes for... our ballpark figure has it being a lot closer to the reserve price of $10,000 than a half a million.

Note: We're going to contact our friends over at NoMas to see if we can give away a couple of their cool t's (inspired by a previous post of ours in which we noted a wacky Bonds wristband that was up for auction). In any event we are proposing that the 3 fans that are closest to the winning bid for Barry's 715 ball will win a cool Barry "Say No to Drugs" T-Shirt. Start your guessing below.