Promotion of the Year

At least, that's how I'll be referring to last night's game from here on out. Maybe of the millennium. Maybe ever.

Here's the new all-time list of greatest promotions in the history of promotions:

1. Baracklyn Cyclones
2. Eddie Gaedel
3. Everything else
   

And I'm not just patting ourselves on the back (like Steve). My favorite blogger (and Joyce's second-favorite), Ben Hill, said so, too. And he pays attention to this stuff for a living. The Associated Press also ran a great story on the night (which you can read here), and it has been picked up across the country, and across the Internets so Baracklyn has once again gone global.

All kidding aside, the Baracklyn Cyclones night really was a huge success, with fans still buzzing this morning. We drew a fantastic crowd of 8,760, and had first pitches from Obama Girl (my new crush) and the president himself (sort of). Secret Service took a bullet baseball in the chest to protect the POTUS (video below), and the bobbleheads were a tremendous hit, with some fans lining up as early as 12:30pm (for a 7pm game), and one fan(atic) driving all the way from Boulder, CO to get his bobble!

We had two people named Barack get in for free (OK, one of them was "Barak," but we let him slide), and one "Joe the Plumber" pick up a set of free tickets with his plumber's union card (one for himself, and one to spread the wealth). The jerseys looked great, too, and we raised a substantial amount of money for the Jackie Robinson Foundation by auctioning them off.

The Baseball Hall of Fame even requested a game-worn jersey from us as part of their efforts to "continually document and preserve the game in Cooperstown." So, starting pitcher Brandon Moore is now going to the Hall of Fame. Well, maybe someday. For now, it's just his jersey. Still pretty cool.

All this hooplah and publicity, despite MLB's best efforts to upstage us with some much-less-important Obama news of their own!

Here are some photo and video highlights of the night:

-- Dave

(photos by George Napolitano)

UPDATE: This just in! Obama Girl likes me us, too!