E-mailFor the past 17 years, the staff at Only A Game has worked diligently to keep our listeners informed of all the important news in the world of sports. Every year at this time we take a break and bring our listeners the Holiday Gift Guide instead. Here’s 2010′s offering, sure to please even the pickiest of holiday shoppers.
We’ll start with one of our bigger gift suggestions…two great big inflatable football players whom, according to Amy Stoyanov of <a href=”//www.solutions.com/jump.jsp?itemID=15770&itemType=PRODUCT&path=1%2C2%2C11245&iProductID=15770″>Solutions, you can pump up at home with ease. Standing at 5’ and 8’ respectively, Bubba and Tiny are the gift every woman wants, at least according to Amy Stoyanov.
During the holiday season – or at any other time – nothing’s more American that baseball…unless it’s an American flag constructed out of three baseballs that have been cut up and rearranged so that the red stitches present the flag’s stripes…at least that’s what Nathan Ruckert of America’s Game baseball flag artwork wishes you to believe. To make his point, he’s offering Only A Game listeners 15% off purchases of $100 or more with the discount code, NPR.
For the baseball fan on your list who’d prefer a less exotic collectible…how about a page out of Joe DiMaggio’s diary? Steiner Sports Marketing and Memorabilia has paired a single page from Joltin’ Joe’s diary with a photo of the slugger in his glory days. Brett Schissler says this unique item would be welcome in any collector’s collection.
Over the past couple of years, perhaps no athlete had a greater number of thoroughly publicized dates than Tiger Woods. Some people were titillated by that story. Some were shocked. Some were disgusted. And a guy named Mike Caldwell turned Tiger’s saga into a gift idea. Caldwell says his limited edition Tail of the Tiger Golf Ball Gift Sets are selling out quickly, so you might want to hurry on this one.
Among the other dandy gifts available to the lucky sports fans on your list are toilet seat covers decorated with the logos of their favorite pro or college teams. Or their least favorite pro or college teams, depending on how they regard toilet seats. Pam Brown, who sells on ebay under the name NHRAfan307, says she started making the items because she couldn’t find an Ohio State toilet seat cover to adorn her bathroom.
You can order a locker room photo featuring a jersey with your name on it, hanging between the jerseys of your favorite players on your favorite team. Jon Hart of That’s Me Sports sells his personalized creations on-line and in about 100 malls around the country.
Or how about a desk vacuum cleaner built to precisely resemble a Zamboni, in case you’re giving a gift to someone whose work space is a mess because the stapler, the telephone, and the computer mouse on his desk have been knocking each others’ teeth out at night? Michael Stoll from Urban Trends is happy to offer such an item, which he says is easiest to find on Amazon.com.
And should you need to find a special something for someone not inclined to just sit around, you might want to consider the Live Action Infrared Skeet Shoot,” featuring a blaster and several reusable plastic skeet, and – hey, why should I be advertising this thing? Let’s let Ian Chisholm of Interactive Toy Concepts do that.
Leigh Anderson has written a book called The Games Bible, wasn’t inclined to take herself or her product so seriously. Which is good because it’s difficult to be too serious about some of the 350 games described in her book, including Adult Musical Chairs and Japanese Snowball Fight.
If you’re looking for a gift to please an active person for whom Adult Musical Chairs might not be a good fit, you might want to consider Robo-Pong, the ping-pong robot. Joey Newgarden of Newgy Industries certainly hopes that lots of people will find Robo-Pong under their Christmas trees, but the more he talks about his father’s creation, the more he sounds like his family would have come up with Robo-Pong even if they’d thought they’d never sell one:
Happy holidays, from all of us here at “Only A Game.”
