Bobblehead dolls are a nod to the past

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My introduction to bobbleheads occurred while riding in a neighbor’s car when I was four or five years old. My friends and I burst out laughing as we watched a glued-to-the-dashboard hula dancer’s hips sway back and forth when the car started moving. All that was missing was Hawaiian luau music on the radio.

We later would pine for the cherubic-faced, ceramic bobbleheads of Willie Mays and Mickey Mantle in their baseball uniforms when they were first issued in the early 1960s. Sadly, the price for these miniatures far exceeded the money we made delivering newspapers, shoveling snow, and raking leaves. When the Beatles invaded our shores, ears, and cultural consciousness a few years later, dolls of the mop-headed Fab Four were in hot demand, but the likenesses of John, Paul, George and Ringo also were beyond our meager means.

It wasn’t until the late 1990s that bobblehead dolls would become widely accessible, thanks, in large part to creative minor-league baseball executives, who were always on the lookout for new ways to entice fans to ballparks. Not surprisingly, Dan Mason and the Rochester Red Wings would be ahead of the curve, celebrating everyone from fabled Wings players such as Cal Ripken Jr., Luke Easter and Joe Altobelli to goodwill ambassadors like Uncle Phil Salamone, organist Fred Costello and Conehead the roving beer vendor.

I broach this subject because bobbleheads are back in the news, thanks to a new Baseball Hall of Fame exhibit devoted to the dolls. “Getting the Nod” opened Saturday, and features roughly 750 baseball-related bobbers from the voluminous collection of former Miami Marlins owner Jeffrey Loria. “There’s a whole, lotta, shakin’ going on,’’ writer/researcher Bill Francis cleverly wrote on the museum’s website in an obvious nod to late rocker Jerry Lee Lewis. The piano-pounding Lewis undoubtedly would have gotten a kick out of this exhibit, which has sensors that put all the dolls in motion whenever someone walks by.

For years, the bobbleheads from Loria’s collection were displayed at Marlins Park. After selling the club a few years ago, he donated his collection to the Hall of Fame and the seed was planted for them to be publicly showcased.

As mentioned, I remember the bobbleheads of Mays and Mantle, who, with Roger Maris and Roberto Clemente, were part of four-player set. The fad created by them and the subsequent Beatle dolls fizzled fast. In fact, it wasn’t until 1999 that bobbleheads would become popular again. And we can thank the “Say Hey Kid” for igniting the rally. To commemorate that season’s 40^th and final anniversary of San Francisco’s Candlestick Park, the Giants gave out Mays bobbleheads. The promotion was a grand slam, and soon other teams followed suit. Today, bobblehead giveaways are among the most popular promotions in sports.

“What most people don’t know, including me until just recently, is that bobbleheads started in the late 17^th century in Asia as Buddhist ‘temple nodders,’ giving worshippers a nod of approval as they prayed,’’ Loria said at Saturday’s ribbon-cutting ceremony. “And then, later on, in the 1700s, the British Prince of Wales was so enchanted by them — he couldn’t get over the bouncing heads — that he imported a legion of them to England.”

It would take nearly two centuries for their popularity to cross the Atlantic, spurred on by gods of baseball and music.

Loria started his collection with a Mantle bobblehead 35 years ago.

“While bobbleheads may not be ‘temple nodders’ — although fans, players and certainly owners, do a lot of praying at some of our games — they are for sure, ‘memory keepers,’ ’’ he said. “Looking at each player’s face and form brings us back to the memory of an amazing play or a special day at the ballpark. At the same time, they are like little painted sculptures. When I see a Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris head bobbing, as I just did, I remember the Yankee games that I went to and sat beside my father . . . One of the many reasons I love baseball is that it’s a happy sport, and bobbleheads truly capture the joy.”

I agree with Loria about the ability of these little statues to evoke nostalgia and joy. As I look at my office shelves I see bobbleheads of Mantle in pinstripes wearing baseball’s “triple crown.” I also see Marv Levy in his blue Buffalo Bills coaching windbreaker, former Syracuse football great Floyd Little carrying a football while stiff-arming an imaginary tackler, and former Wing-infielder-turned-Hollywood-screenwriter Ron Shelton in his baseball uniform on one side and his director’s attire on the other side.

But my favorite bobblehead is not of a man, but of man’s best friend. Milo the Bat Dog, black baseball bat gripped in his golden retriever’s mouth, smiles back at me every day I sit down to write. And in his case, it’s the tail rather than the head that moves, making him a bobble-tail doll.

Milo, who retrieved lumber for the Wings before his untimely death two years ago, is part of a Rochester tradition that dates to 2001, when Ripken became the first bobblehead giveaway at then Frontier Field. Besides making sure that Cal was decked out in a Wings’ No. 5 jersey (rather than the eight he wore for the Baltimore Orioles), Mason emphasized to the designer that the legend’s eyes needed to be ocean blue. Mason estimates the Wings have created between 100 and 125 bobbleheads through the years with four more (Darren & Dusty Baker, Dylan Crews, Bruce the Bat Dog and James Wood) scheduled for this season.

The Bakers, Crews, Bruce and Wood figurines are sure to evoke nostalgia and joy. Memory keepers, indeed.

Best-selling author and nationally honored journalist Scott Pitoniak is the Rochester Business Journal sports columnist.