Watching The U.S. Mail For Baseball (Season 2)
by Paul Semendinger
January 31, 2021
***
I love getting mail. Good mail. Letters, packages, fun surprises and the like, fun stuff like that. (Not bills.)
As a kid, I couldn’t wait for the mail to arrive. I always hoped something good would come… maybe the new Strat-o-Matic cards I ordered…or those baseball pennants I purchased from sending in my Bazooka Joe comics.
In the spring, I would sometimes send letters to my favorite baseball teams asking for schedules, stickers, and whatever else they could send. It was always so much fun.
Last year, I decided to try to re-live that experience. Baseball has complained about the lack of fan interest, smaller crowd sizes, less revenue, and so much more. I thought to myself, “Well, what are the teams doing to draw up interest?” I then took the time to send e-mail requests to every team asking for promotional materials. The response to all of that was hugely disappointing. Very few teams replied to my inquiries. The Yankees did not reply nor send any promotional materials. I chronicled all of that in the articles linked below.
Since the responses I received last year by e-mail were so underwhelming, this year I decided to request materials through the regular U.S. Mail. Earlier today, I sent an individualized letter to each MLB team through the mail. The letter read:
Dear (Team Name) Public Relations,
As a way to create excitement for the coming baseball season and as a way to generate and maintain interest in baseball during these last few weeks before spring training, we here at Start Spreading the News a baseball blog focused primarily on the Yankees, decided to reach out to every single Major League team to ask for any fun free promotional items that we can showcase on our website.
Our idea is to see what each team provides as a fun way to see how the various teams’ public relations departments help generate interest in their ball clubs when fan letters arrive.
Each time items arrive in the mail, we’ll showcase them on our web site.
Through this exercise, we’ll find out which teams are the most creative, the most fan friendly, and more. Will it be your club?
Please send any promotional materials to the address above.
Thank you. And, thank you also for contributing to the sport we all love.
Good luck in the 2021 season!
Our Best,
The Start Spreading the News Admin. Team
I am curious to see if the MLB teams respond more positively to my requests that come through the U.S. Mail.
As the items come back to me, hopefully over the coming days and weeks, I’ll chronicle all of that here. I am hoping we can showcase a lot of fun items.
Let’s see which teams respond and which are the most enthusiastic and generous with their (potential) fan bases.
The letters have been sent, now I’ll just wait for the fun items to arrive!
***
Last Year’s Articles From This Series:
A Brand New Feature – “Watching the U.S. Mail for Baseball”
Watching the U.S. Mail for Baseball – Episode 1
Watching the U.S. Mail for Baseball – Episode 2 (Go Orioles!!!)
Watching the U.S. Mail for Baseball – Episode 3 (Giants of the Game)
Watching the U.S. Mail for Baseball – Episode 4 (Got To Give The Astros Credit)
(and, sadly, that was it.)
