Sneak Peek - Sweet Spot Bobblehead - Joe Mauer

The Twins announced that this season's Sweet Spot bobblehead (a benefit given to select Minnesota Twins Season Ticket Holders) will be Joe Mauer!  This is Mauer's second Sweet Spot bobblehead and both of them are home runs!  I'm sure this one will be pretty popular among Twins fans and bobblehead collectors!  Can't wait to pick up mine in September!!

Byron Buxton Sweet Spot Bobblehead

I can finally announce that Byron Buxton is the Twins Sweet Spot bobblehead this year.  The rarest of "giveaway" bobbles, the Sweet Spot bobblehead is only given to select season ticket holders who rank this benefit high enough on their wishlist.  Success Promotions produced it and it references Buxton's opening day diving catch.  Super awesome bobble that will be hard to come by!

New Addition - Miguel Sano Sweet Spot Bobblehead

The newest addition to my collection (from last night) is a Miguel Sano bobblehead.  These are commonly called "Sweet Spot" bobbleheads as season ticket holders rank various "Sweet Spot Benefits" and if you rank the player bobblehead high enough you get one towards the end of each season.  We found out about a couple weeks ago that Sano was the Sweet Spot bobble and the Twins began giving them to select season ticket holders last night.  Thankfully its produced by Success Promotions and is a great bobble, easily the best one (along with the Plouffe Star Wars - also by Success Promotions) of the season.  

Sneak Peek - Miguel Sano Sweet Spot Bobblehead

Another sneak peek, this time, it's the bobblehead the Twins are giving to select season ticket holders, commonly known as the "Sweet Spot" bobblehead.  It's definitely a very cool looking bobblehead and I'm pretty sure Success Promotions is behind it - which makes me very very happy!

It's real - Joe Mauer & Justin Morneau Dual Bobblehead - Red Base

I've had a few people inquire about this bobblehead over the past month or so and have seen several others chat about it on various forms of social media, specifically Facebook.  I've been meaning to take some pictures of mine and blog about it, but this just ramped up my willingness to dig mine out.

I'll start by saying I don't know a ton about this bobblehead.  I've only heard stories and haven't been able to get second and third confirmations of said stories.  Since its a red base bobblehead, I'm pretty confident that these were only given to season ticket holders.  That's where my confidence ends in accurately sharing the story behind this bobble.  I've been told 2 different stories - both relating to the purchase of season tickets.  I believe these were given to season ticket holders in 2009 (to those renewing their seats for the first season at Target Field) or in 2010.

Story 1 - Twins gave this rare bobblehead set to people who had season tickets either for a long long time or purchased season tickets in some of the most expensive locations at Target Field.

Story 2 - The Twins gave the bobble to new season ticket holders who purchased their ticket plan at "The Great Minnesota Get-Together" (Minnesota State Fair).

I tend to believe the 2nd story more as I'm sure during a day 10 period, near the end of the baseball season, not many fans were thinking about purchasing season ticket plans.  No matter where this bobble came from, its definitely one of my favorite bobbleheads the Twins have done!

Timberwolves Bobbleheads

Yep, thats right, the Wolves are bringing back SGA bobbleheads this season.  I teased this with a post in early September.  At the time, I couldn't say anything until it was public knowledge.  It's been in the local paper so now I can officially announce the Wolves will giveaway 5 bobbleheads this year, starting with Andrew Wiggins on November 12th.  I haven't secured the names of the other 4, but I can only assume 2 of them will be Kevin Garnett and Karl Anthony Towns.  The other 2 are pretty debatable at this point.  Once I know more, I'll pass it along.  And of course once I have pictures, I'll post them!  Hopefully giving everyone sneak peeks of all 5!

I'm super excited for this set of bobbleheads.  The Wolves haven't done bobbles for a long time (and even the last handful of years when they have, its been for season ticket holders).  I'm glad they got back on the bobblehead bandwagon!

Update

The 5 bobblehead dates/players have been announced.  Here they are!

November 12th - Andrew Wiggins
December 26th - Karl Anthony Towns
January 23rd - Zach LaVine
February 20th - Ricky Rubio
April 13th - Gorgui Dieng

Torii Hunter Season Ticket Bobblehead

So the Twins are at it again, this year giving out a limited edition Torii Hunter bobblehead to select Season Ticket Holders through their "Sweet Spot" program.  A couple have already sold on eBay for $100.  They say only 1300 were produced, which is less than last year's edition (Brian Dozier - 1500) and the year before (Joe Mauer - 2500).

Here's the detail from the Twins and once I have the bobblehead I'll take a close-up!

So the picture is just of the box, but I promise the Hunter bobblehead is inside!

Brian Dozier STH Bobblehead

Just like the past few years the Twins did a bobblehead giveaway to select season ticket holders. The season ticket holders to rank giveaways and maybe even specifically bobbleheads high enough on their "wish list" received a certificate redeemable for a Brian Dozier bobblehead.  During the final homestand of the season, people with these certificates had to redeem them for their Dozier bobblehead at the start of each of the games.  A limited number of these were produced, only 1500! Much less than the 2500 Joe Mauer bobbleheads from last season's STH giveaway.

Below are pictures of the certificate as well as the bobblehead.

Finally - The Trifecta!

Recently I completed the Trifecta - when it comes to Joe Mauer and Justin Morneau double bobbleheads!  I believe they share their likeness on 3 different bobbleheads.  The first is an SGA from a Fort Myers Miracle game, I believe in 2007.  This is somewhat of a "mini" bobblehead, but not a true mini.  It's certainly smaller than the typical 7 inch variety.  I believe there were 1000 of these cool bobbleheads given away!

The second one is an SGA bobblehead from the Twins in 2012, this is easily the most common of the 3 as I'm sure they were 10,000 (or more) of these given away.  

Below is the double bobblehead that completed the Mauer/Morneau bobblehead trifecta.  I don't know much about this one.  I believe its from 2008 or 2009 and since its has a red base, its a season ticket holder bobblehead.  I've heard that it was given to select season ticket holders who purchased either specific seats or has a large season ticket base.  I've heard only 100-200 of these were given out!

Minnesota Twins ST Bobblehead Set (Part 1 - Year 2001)

In March I did a 13 part series on each SGA bobblehead by year.  I'm doing another series showing the season ticket holder bobbleheads from every year.  These bobbleheads are given to full and partial season ticket holders.  Partial season ticket holders would only get 1 or 2 of these bobbleheads while full season ticket holders could get the entire set.

2001 is the first year the Twins gave season ticket holders a set of bobbleheads.  As you can see there isn't much difference in the 4 bobbleheads when compared to the 2000 SGA bobbleheads!  Harmon Killebrew, Kent Hrbek, Tony Oliva and Kirby Puckett make up the set of 4 bobbleheads.  Much like its 2000 SGA sibling set, this is one of the hardest ST sets to complete!  Why you ask?  Mainly because of the Hrbek and Killebrew bobbleheads (just like the SGAs!).

Below is a comparison of the SGA and ST sets.  You can see each bobblehead is almost the same with the main differences being a uniform change.  Also, the easiest way to tell if any of these 4 bobbleheads are ST or SGA...ST have the players last name on the front of the base.