“Doctor Bobble” is a self-made expert on bobbleheads and he’s a huge collector of them (especially Atlanta Braves ones). I recently had a chance to chat with him about that hobby. Here is the full interview.
KW (Me): I don’t quite recall how I came across your account on twitter, but after I decided I would write a piece about Atlanta Braves bobbleheads and their cost and I figured you would be a perfect interview subject.
DB: Thanks! I’m pretty passionate about bobbleheads, so I’m always happy to chat about them!
KW: Awesome! To begin, how did you get started as a collector? It isn’t a hugely mainstream hobby to my knowledge.
DB: That’s a great question. I’ve actually not been collecting very long. Technically I have had an old, tiny Upper Deck Andruw Jones bobblehead since I was a kid (I think I picked it up at a yard sale), but I actually didn’t find it at my parent’s house until recently.
The obsession actually started when I was a graduate student at the University of North Carolina. I tried going to as many games as I could as it was free for students.
In 2016, they had a promotional giveaway of a Matt Harvey bobblehead and I thought it would be a worthwhile way to spend an afternoon.
So there you have it.. my bobblehead collection officially started with a Matt Harvey bobblehead. Ha.
The Good Stuff
KW: That’s nothing to be ashamed of. At least your school’s baseball team gave out bobbleheads!
What would you say is your favorite bobblehead? If there’ a cool story associated with it, I’d love to hear that as well.
DB: Well the first one always means a lot, but I think my favorite bobblehead is the Acuna Matata bobblehead given away by the Danville Braves in 2018.
Acuña Matata! pic.twitter.com/IJrD29223e
— DoctorBobble (@DoctorBobble) January 7, 2019
It depicts Andruw Jones holding up a very tiny Ronald Acuna up in a Lion King-type pose. They only gave away 500 of those that night and we arrived at the stadium two hours before the gates opened.
If you’ve seen the Legion Field in Danville, it could easily pass for a rec-league park. The line of folks extended through the parking lot and folks there said they had never seen a line quite like that one. That bobblehead had become a bit rare and quite valuable.
I was glad I only had to pay the $5 for admission. I was actually fortunate enough to have Andruw sign that bobblehead earlier this year! Hoping I can get Acuna to sign the little guy at some point!
KW: Yeah that really sounds like a steal! I’ll bet that was quite the crowd, that was around when the public at large was beginning to discover just how good Acuna really was. It would be really special if Acuna signed that one as well!
[ ed. note: he’s not wrong: it was a steal. At the moment, there is exactly one of these available on ebay.com, and that seller has set a price of $300 for it. ]