Shohei Ohtani is the biggest star in Major League Baseball and his bobblehead is in high demand. They are selling for ridiculous amounts of money on the resale market, which might have ruined approximately 13,000 true fans’ ability to get their hands on the souvenir.
There was some suspicious activity going on at Chavez Ravine on Thursday night and at least one instance of questionable behavior was caught on camera!
The Los Angeles Dodgers held its Ohtani bobblehead giveaway prior to their game against the Cincinnati Reds. It attracted a sellout crowd of 53,527 fans, which was the largest attendance in MLB this season and the most at Dodger Stadium since late 2019.
Shohei Ohtani Bobblehead Night packed the stands!
Only 40,000 fans received a bobblehead.
38,300 fans received a bobblehead that depicts a smiling Ohtani in the home white jersey with his bat perched above his left shoulder. 1,700 fans received the same bobblehead but in a road grey jersey, which makes it even more rare.
Even the box is cool, with an homage to Japanese anime.
The bobbleheads are a pretty cool collector’s item. That could go without saying.
Tickets to the game cost no less than $150. Everybody — Dodgers fans, MLB fans and Ohtani fans — wanted to be there to receive their piece of history. Unfortunately, scammers were also among those in attendance to snatch up as many bobbleheads as possible.
“Scammer” might be the wrong word, but you know who I am referring to. The people who bought a ticket (or multiple tickets) to the game, grabbed a bobblehead (or more than one), and did not even stay for more than an inning. They went home and immediately listed the bobblehead for sale online.
To be fair, it is an extremely lucrative venture and everybody is just trying to make a living as best they can. Shohei Ohtani bobbleheads (especially the grey ones) are listed for as much as $2,500 on sites like eBay. Even when you subtract the cost of the ticket, that’s a comfortable $2K+ profit.
With that being said, those folks prevented other true fans from getting a bobblehead. That sucks. Especially when you consider that Los Angeles traffic likely forced some (if not all) of the 13,000 people who did not get a bobblehead to be late.
There also appeared to be some funny business afoot. An out-of-context TikTok video showed one of the security guards hand two bobbleheads to one fan.
For all we know, the fan in question bought two tickets and received two bobbleheads. Maybe he brought one home to his brother who couldn’t make it. We don’t have any additional information.
However, by getting two, that fan prevented somebody behind him from getting one.
And then there is the worst case scenario, which the original poster of the video alluded to in her caption. If that fan received two bobbleheads without having two tickets and sold one (or both), he ruined Shohei Ohtani Bobblehead Night for two young kids who would’ve kept their collectible figurine on the nightstand forever. Shame!!