Thursday, August 13, 2009

Hall of Fame Weekend: Merchandise and Memorabilia Part II

You'd think that after the length of my first merchandise post that I would have exhausted the supply, but I've got just as many items to show you this time around. Some came from the Hall of Fame shop, others were sold by vendors on Main Street, while still others were free items that I collected throughout the weekend.

After posting the first round of merchandise, I updated the post with information about how to purchase some of the items, but not everyone might have seen it. You can go to the Hall of Fame's new online store, which for some reason can not be accessed through the Hall of Fame's website. If you don't see what you want, you can also call the Hall directly at 1-888-425-5633, and they'll try and help you out.





I meant to include these in the first post, but forgot, so I'll put them here instead. These were both taken inside the main Hall of Fame gift shop, where I ended up spending way too much time (and money).



We'll start the merchandise with some of the official Hall of Fame items that I mentioned previously. This is the Rickey Henderson acrylic plaque, which wasn't specifically included in the catalog, since the plaque image isn’t released until after the induction ceremony.



This is a better picture of the front and back of the Hall of Fame cache, which also couldn't be released until induction day, since it's cancelled by the post office on the day of induction.



Here's Rickey's official Hall of Fame plaque postcard, which at only $0.50, was quite a bargain. I'm not sure if this is true or not, but I'm guessing that these postcards, which are available for all Hall of Famers, are some of the more popular Hall of Fame souvenirs.



The last of the official merchandise is this pennant, which also features an image of Rickey's plaque. I never did see the pennant that was included in my previous post (an in the catalog), but this one definitely looks a lot nicer. It's possible that the design for the other pennant was basically just a placeholder image, since they couldn't show much of this one due to the prominent image of the plaque.



This is the Hall of Fame Induction Day Card, which I actually mentioned previously. I was able to get this cancelled at the post office after returning from the ceremony. According to the owner of TCMA Covers, who put out the cards, all 2,000 of the Jim Rice cards were sold, as well as 1,807 of the Rickey versions. At around $5.00 a piece they were a great souvenir at a great price.



When arriving at the post office to get the cards cancelled, I was actually surprised to see that they had produced a pretty nice cache of their own to commemorate the event. At only $8.00, it was much more reasonable than the $24.95 for the official one from the Hall of Fame.



The streets of Cooperstown are packed with tables and vendors during induction weekend, selling baseball cards, collectibles, t-shirt, food, and even their own "bootleg" souvenirs.





Postal caches seemed to be pretty popular, with quite a few vendors making their own, all of varying degrees of quality. I liked the design on the two shown above, and since they were fairly reasonably priced, I couldn't pass them up. I also had these cancelled on Sunday, along with the induction day card.



This bat was produced by the Cooperstown Bat Company, who also produced a bat for the Hall of Fame. This one, however, was produced as a fundraiser for the local Rotary Club, hence the logo on the right side of the bat.



This button was another purchase from a vendor off the street, and is a unique little souvenir.



Like the button above, this t-shirt also declares "I Was There" for Induction Weekend in 2009. For a shirt that was not professionally designed, I actually liked the way that it looked. Plus, for only $5.00, I couldn't pass it up.



Returning to the official merchandise, this is a copy of the Hall of Fame's quarterly member magazine, "Memories & Dreams," which I found at the Hall of Fame Bookstore. I became a member a few months ago, but my first issue was the one released after this, so it was nice to be able to pick up the one that I missed.



The Hall of Fame Museum produced a special version of their brochure guide just for induction weekend. Although you had to pay to get into the museum, the guide itself was a nice free souvenir.



Another free souvenir, which was actually a welcome surprise, was this special edition of "Memories and Dreams" that served as a program for the induction ceremony. The Hall was giving away programs, and even free bottles of chilled water, to anyone in attendance at the induction.



They were also giving away free baseball hat shaped paper fans. At the start of the ceremony, everyone was hoping that they were umbrellas, but as the day went on, the heat picked up, and I'm sure the fans were appreciated.



This was a free magazine that I ran across while browsing the local grocery store. I liked the baseball card designs on the front, and there's actually a pretty good article on Rickey inside as well.



Any member visiting the Hall also got this special induction weekend button, which was not for sale anywhere. I saw them handing them out all day Friday and Saturday, but they seemed to be out when I visited on Sunday night. The free button was one of many little things that the organizers of the Hall of Fame did to help make for a very memorable weekend.

3 comments:

night owl said...

I wondered if the Memories and Dreams program/commemorative issue was available down there. I get it delivered at work. I was going to send you my copy.

ManOfSteal said...

Thanks for thinking of me! I was actually surprised that they were just giving the programs away, as they obviously could have been charging for them, and people would definitely have bought them. It's nice when for once you aren't nickle-and-dimed for everything.

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