They weren't Promo of the Day, but they were still pretty good...

This was a good week for minor league baseball promotions. Wanted to take some time to point out some of good ones that just missed being MinorLeagueDugout.com's Promotion of the Day.

Start with Newark, where the Atlantic League’s Bears are celebrating Michael Jackson’s 50th birthday tonight. Needless to say, the Bears are bringing a Jackson impersonator to the park. They actually hired this guy last year, too, and the video is from that night.



Along with the impersonator Newark feature a countdown of their favorite “Wacko Jacko” moments, a trivia contest about 1958 (Jackson’s birth year) and a Don’t Forget the Lyrics contest. The most visually interesting on-field contest, however, will likely be musical chairs, where contestants will have to circle the chairs while moonwalking.

A little further up the eastern seaboard from Newark, Lowell is hosting Superstition Night. To kick the night off, the Spinners age giving away Wade Boggs bobbleheads. In honor of Boggs’ traditional pre-game meal, Lowell is converting its between inning sandwich-eating contest to a fried chicken-eating contest. Instead of trying to throw a ball into a bucket, like a contestant would do on a normal night’s contest, tonight’s contestants will try to throw balls that will break mirrors. All contestants will enter the field by walking under a ladder and the 13th fan to enter the ballpark wins a special prize.

St. Paul offered another bizarre promo on Thursday night. As part of their A Monkey Could Do It Night, the Saints brought in a couple of live monkeys, Mr. Monk and Mindy Monk, and asked them to perform a couple common ballpark jobs. The monkeys tried their paws at ticket taking, ushering and broadcasting, among other things. Just sent St. Paul a note to see whether there were any final stats on monkey success.

Update: Just got this note from Saints broadcast and media relations guy Sean Aronson:
Other than appearing on the broadcast with me, where he sat there and held my finger and rested his head on my finger I’m not sure what else he did because I WAS BROADCASTING. He did a good job taking tickets I saw that. Other than that I’m not sure.

On Wednesday Grand Prairie held Pickup Truck Night. All pickups parked for free and any pickup carrying 10 or more fans qualified for the group discount. There are other interesting things going on in Grand Prairie, but those are being saved for the next blog entry.