Hello Kitty? Are you KIDDING ME?

Believe it or not, the A’s will be celebrating Hello Kitty with a July 18 bobblehead give away this season. Mandatory Credit: Anthony Gruppuso-USA TODAY Sports

Baseball is known for its promotions where teams come up with gimmicks, giveaways, and entertainment to try to entice fans to come out to the stadium.

These are usually focused to people who might not otherwise come to a baseball game to show up, however it’s just never been that hard to convince me to go watch baseball, especially if you’re sportin’ a winning, exciting team. “Whatever… you want to give me free stuff on top of that? Great, but you had me at baseball game.”

When I was a kid, the giveaways at baseball games were not especially creative. There was cap day, shirt day, bat day (with REAL Louisville Sluggers), and…well, that was basically it. Today things are different.

Take for example the bobblehead phenomenon that started years ago and has saturated many teams’ promotional schedules resulting in stadium sellouts and subsequent eBay listings.

The A’s promotional schedule was just published for the 2015 season full of fireworks nights, team and player memorabilia, and even a 1965 turn-back-the-clock day, but I had to take a “what-the-hey” double-take, followed by head scratching, trying to figure out what genius in the A’s PR department came up with the idea for the July 18 Hello Kitty bobble head give-away.

That means that someone in charge of A’s promotions actually thought to himself, “hey I know what fans will love…a Hello Kitty bobblehead!”

A few years ago I remember the A’s have some success with their Beanie Baby promotions, but that was a time when Beanie Babies were all the fad and a $7 bleacher ticket got you an item you could easily dump for $40 on eBay. But is Hello Kitty really all a craze right now not to mention no baseball nexus what-so-ever?

I’m not one to shun non-baseball promotions. Now remember, last year the A’s had the unicorn backpack giveaway that was a hit but that craze was brought to Oakland by Sean Doolittle in reference to the relievers’ tradition of having rookie pitchers tote their hideous one out to the pen every night.

The A’s faced some awkwardness and embarrassment last season with the Yoenis Cespedes La Potencia T-shirt giveaway where he had been traded to the Red Sox before the scheduled day of the giveaway – well, those things happen, but back to Hello Kitty.

So now the A’s plan to entice fans to the Coliseum with an all pink prepubescent girlie cartoon character in the form of a bobblehead. To me it strongly leaves something to be desired with no real baseball or trendy nexus.

Stay classy with the baseball savvy, A’s PR.