Steve Feitl

@SteveFeitl

Editor's Note (July 21): The Mets Thor bobblehead giveaway is this Saturday with the first 15,000 receiving the coveted collectible. While the Mets' average attendance is down to approximately 31,000 at Citi Field entering the weekend, demand for Saturday's game is expected to remain high. The minimum ticket price on the secondary market for the 7:10 p.m. game against the Oakland A's is the highest for any Mets home game until the Subway Series in August. And on auction site eBay, numerous "presales" of the stadium giveaway have sold in the high $90 range in the last week, with the lowest successful purchase price being $70. What follows is the original column, as published March 13.

Thor is coming to Citi Field this summer in bobblehead form. But if you don’t arrive early, you might instead meet his trickster brother Loki.

After several years of playing up his superhero nickname, Noah Syndergaard will be portrayed as the comic book God of Thunder in a Marvel-collaborated stadium giveaway on July 22.

The first 15,000 New York Mets fans through the gates for the 7:10 p.m. game against the Oakland Athletics will receive the bobblehead collectible.

That’s the same number of Matt Harvey garden gnomes that will be given away on April 22. And the same number of David Wright “Starting Lineup” figurines on May 20. And Yoenis Cespedes bobbleheads on Aug. 19.

And while the super-cool superhero-esque collectible will surely be the most inventive Mets promotion of the season, the hammer-wielding bobble will share one other quality with all those other giveaways: There won’t be nearly enough.

The Mets are far from the only team to frustrate its fan base in this way, but they have been down this road frequently in recent years. Two seasons ago, social media exploded with reports of long lines and disappointed fans on May 2, 2015, for the Jacob deGrom garden gnome giveaway. The Mets announced an attendance that day of 39,730, which meant approximately 24,730 fans left sans deGnome.

Last season was even worse. The Syndergaard-en gnome giveaway attracted an announced attendance of 44,466 on April 30, 2016, meaning nearly two in every three fans to arrive at the ballpark that Saturday were denied the item that had been heavily promoted on SNY broadcasts all month. The fun commercial for the giveaway did clearly state the quantity (twice), but many fans remain let down nearly a year later. Just last week, one sold on eBay for $127.50.

While the gnomes were the hot items the last two seasons, plenty of fans were left out in the cold on bobblehead days too. The announced attendance on Aug. 27, 2016, for the Harvey bobble was 35,832 – more than 20,000 north of the announced supply.

Again, the Mets are not the only MLB team to bungle the bobblehead quantities. Of the 28 teams to list giveaway quantities on their websites, seven will hand out fewer bobbles than the Amazin’s this summer. This includes the world champion Chicago Cubs, though their language is the most explicit, noting the giveaway is limited to “up to 10,000 early arriving fans.”

Another four teams equal the Mets’ total of 15,000. The Colorado Rockies are somehow both better and worse depending on the date – 20,000 of DJ LeMahieu on April 8, but only 10,000 of Nolan Arenado on Aug. 19.

Still, 15 teams give away more than the Mets, including several rivals and peers – New York Yankees (18,000), Atlanta Braves (20,000) and Washington Nationals (25,000.) Another team in a large market – the Los Angeles Dodgers – pledge up to 40,000.

And the Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers list their most sought-after bobbles (Mike Schmidt and Robin Yount, respectively) for “all fans.”

While that would be the standard in an ideal world, there is surely a reality of production costs, sponsor desires and a fear of being left with unused inventory in the event of a rainy day. But that’s the reality for the franchise.

Here’s the reality for the fans: If you want the Syndergaard Thor bobblehead, you’ll need to arrive at Citi Field several hours before first pitch. You’ll need to stand in a long line on a July afternoon. And even if you do, you still might be one of the two-thirds of the ballpark to leave Thor-less.

Surely a team that averaged more than 34,000 fans per game last season can do better than 15,000. That’s how many Matt Duffy bobbleheads the Tampa Bay Rays will hand out June 10 and the Rays ranked last in attendance last year. Based on the quantities quoted above, more than half the league can afford to produce more.

A lot of time this offseason has been spent discussing changes to baseball, including ways to improve the pace of the game. If Commissioner Rob Manfred wants to find an easy way to improve the fan experience while pondering greater changes, setting more reasonable floors on giveaway quantities would be a simple fix.

Because tricking 30,000 fans into thinking they will receive a bobblehead isn’t something a superhero like Thor would do. But Loki would.

And in case MLB isn’t up on its comic lore, Loki is a villain.

Staff writer Steve Feitl is a columnist for the Asbury Park Press. Email: sfeitl@gannettnj.com

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