Buck O’Neil Figurine Giveaway Postponed
(from the TBones Website)
Due to customs problems, the Buck O’Neil figurine giveaway scheduled for July 4th will not occur. The first 3000 fans through the gates today (July 4th) will receive a voucher that can be redeemed for a Buck O’Neil figurine at the T-Bones Team Store in the Legends, after July 10th. The T-Bones regret the inconvenience.

If you have any questions or comments, please contact Bear Goodell, Marketing and Promotions Director, at xxxxx@tbonesbaseball.com or (913) 328-XXXX.

This is an amazingly difficult problem to deal with, but I saw this and thought that the T-Bones handled it well.

Open, up-front, honest, apologetic, and a present a solution.  Most fans will understand that things happen, so the best thing to do is just address it the best way possible and move forward.

Here’s hoping that your next promotion arrives a day early and that they are painted the right color.

-Cudo

PS:  If you have this happen and want to share your resolution, please comment below.

We are approaching a historic milestone, with an equally compelling game operations-related question. As Barry Bonds approaches the all-time home run record and does so with the winds of scandal in his sails, I will be interested to watch how any team (including his own) treats the milestone and produces the surrounding celebration.

Of course it’s more likely that Bonds will drive #755 and #756 into McCovey Cove than on the road (teams often rest players strategically to have the event happen at home), one has to wonder how the event will be handled if the Giants are on the road. This was discussed in a previous blog about the Nashville Predators. But you also have to wonder how it will play out regardless of the location due to the shadowy steroid scandal and the relative unpopularity of Bonds the player.

I just finished reading Game of Shadows this month, which was a really powerful book covering how steroids and performance enhancing drugs have altered sports and entertainment. If you don’t have a strong dislike for Barry Bonds before you read the book…you will after. However the book is about much more than Bonds. It’s about the culture of sports, the pressure to find any edge, and how powerfully tilted the incentives are to cheat. There is a lot of evidence that Bonds used every edge (legal and otherwise) to catch Aaron, so the jury of public opinion regarding the accomplishment may be harsh and any celebration will certainly have mixed emotions and sentiment.

It would be impossible to ignore the feat, but building the proper tribute will be closely scrutinized. Too much glitz and ceremony and you may look foolish if history judges his fantastic career numbers with an asterisk. Not enough and you risk not paying the proper tribute to a record that has stood for over 30 years. The eyes of the world will certainly be watching.

Looking back at Aaron’s 716th home run (see the video below) I think the Atlanta Braves actually did a great job with the celebration….relying on fireworks and a crowd who knew they were a part of history to highlight the feat. I just wonder if they can find the two guys who chased Aaron around the bases to play an honorary role this time around. (read more about the Aaron home run also below).

–Cudo

PS: In the interest of keeping the blog on track above I didn’t give enough praise to Game of Shadows, which is outstanding and timely. I strongly recommend it.

Click more for the #716 video, more on Aaron’s home run chase, an audio story, and another book link on Hank Aaron and the Home Run that Changed America.
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A special Friday edition blog on Gameops.com just to note a few changes and updates on the site.

1. Navigation - You may have noticed a slight change in our navigation on Gameops.com. We have just cleaned up some of the left side with a new programming tool to make the site easy to navigate. Colors are slightly different and we have added many more pages that you can access with one click. You can run your cursor over the sections to see all the options. It’s not on every page yet, but it’s close.
2. LIVE Help - We have a new Live Help Tool on all the Premium Spotlight pages. When our staff is available the Live Help icon shows we are available. Just click on that to open a window and live chat with our TEAMmate Sales Staff. It’s a great way to get a quick question answered. If the box shows “unavailable” you can still click and leave a message. It’s a very smooth tool to help you get the answers you need.
3. Gameops.com Store - We have about 4 years of products, varying layouts for products, and some product updates to deal with….it may be a 2 month project, but the work has started. A tip for the blog readers: Prices are being changed this month, so you can save some money by ordering in July. Prices on many products have not changed for 3 or 4 years, so we are due to a rise in shipping costs and product costs.
4. YouTube and Promotion Database - We encourage you to send us links or emails about videos you post on YouTube or promotions you are doing. We have spent hours building these tools (over 450 videos and 750 promotions) and continued growth can be supercharged with your help. We also are using submissions to be noticed for the 2007 Best of Awards.

Thanks for your continued support of Gameops.com. We are coming up on nine years on the web and we could not have done it without your support.

-Cudo

Thanks to everyone who is sending in YouTube clips from there team or mascot. It’s making the process of adding to our index of over 460 videos easier, and we are getting a better variety of clips.

We received this one from Howler in Phoenix showing a wide variety of mascot clips set to music. (see the clip below).

Email us with any links and we will add your clips so the rest of the industry can see your work….or you can use the “Share Video” link on YouTube to send us the video.

Thanks.

-Cudo

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The Greenville Drive sent us this video, which is a fantastic music video set to the Black Eye Pea’s My Humps.

Gameops.com YouTube section is quickly closing in on 500 videos related to game entertainment and operations.  We have them indexed in several categories for easy viewing.

If you have uploaded videos from your game entertainment, scoreboard show, mascot or promotions please send us a quick email and we will add them to our collection.  This is also a great way to be noticed for the 2007 Gameops.com Best of Awards.  Due to the explosion of on-line video, we are debating adding a video-related award to the categories.  We welcome your feedback on that as well.

We may have an irregular posting sechedule next week due to the holiday.  Here’s wishing eveyone a happy and safe Fourth of July.

-Cudo