Oakland Athletics rookie first baseman Daric Barton has yet to light the major leagues on fire - and the arrival of Wes Bankston may further decrease his playing time – but when I stumbled across this Sacramento Rivercats giveaway I had to have it!

It was the first bobble head I’ve ever purchased by way of an Ebay auction.

When the time finally expired - and I recognized I was the highest bidder @ a whopping $15.50 I felt like a kid on Christmas morning.

Well, perhaps not that excited – but I was thrilled none the less.

This rare bobblehead - in its original box - was one of only 3000 given out at a recent Rivercats game on May 16th 2008. It may never become the most valuable piece of sports memorabilia I own – but it’s cheeky - different – and did I mention it has a Mohawk? So what’s not to like?

***My bobblehead collection is slowly growing into a mildly impressive group***

This year alone I’ve added 10 new heads and look forward to traveling to Minnesota in a few weeks to take in a Twins/Rangers game – that just happens to be Delmon Young Bobblehead Night! (July 19/2008)

That will give me a total of 18 heads – provided we are one of the first 10,000 fans through the friendly Metrodome gates. It won’t be long now – it’ll be time to head to the hardware store for more shelves!

Now c’mon Daric and Delmon…

Let’s see that power you guys supposedly possess!

I’ve been casually collecting Bobbleheads for the past few seasons - and have accumulated a rather unsubstantial amount compared to other collectors massive totals - but it’s getting to a point where my office shelves are beginning to resemble the crowded motley crew gathered in the 1979 movie poster The Warriors.

As a kid I collected various things such as stamps, coins, and of coarse baseball and hockey cards. I even recall collecting salt and pepper shakers at one time! My parents were avid garage sale junkies – so inevitably I became smitten with the idea of harboring a collection of something different every couple years.

By the way – salt & pepper shakers are kind of an odd collection choice for a kid – but it was likely the result of witnessing my dads various odd treasure chests over the years. He went through the conventional stamps and comic books phase - but his most bizarre ‘yard sale seek out’ had to be his gigantic antique mason jar collection which at one point I believe grew somewhere in the vicinity of 5000 jars.

Mom became expectedly livid with this passion and forced him to store the mass quantities of canning jars way out at the back of our property in an old somewhat shoddy looking barn where I believe some vandal kids ended up smashing several hundred of them – and ended his short lived mammoth pickling jar cluster.