Durham Bulls Chipper Jones Bobblehead

I forget about all of the other things that float into my collection beyond baseball cards that would be cool to post in my blog space.  I had a cool piece enter my collection this week that I have decided to share.  Maybe I will post a few more during the next week.

The past week the Durham Bulls honored former Braves third baseman, and future Hall of Famer, Chipper Jones.  The team had a ceremony before the game where he became the fourth Durham Bulls player to have his jersey retired.  The others are Johnny Evers, Joe Morgan, and Crash Davis.  A work event prevented me from attending the game, so here's a picture from the Durham Herald-Sun.

Jones played seventy games for the Durham Bulls at shortstop as while he was in A ball.  While he was not in Durham a long time, it does not take a long appearance in a Minor League city for a player to have a huge impact.  I remember watching Evan Longoria and David Price play for the Bulls, and while their stay in AAA was short, I am sure they will be among the best players I get to witness playing minor league baseball.  My baseball fans in the area who witnessed Jones brief stay with the Bulls say the same thing about him: short time, great impact.

Besides missing out on the ceremony and seeing Chipper Jones in person, I also missed out on the Stadium Giveaway of a Chipper Jones bobblehead.  Luckily, someone was kind enough to pick me up an extra bobble which I really like:

Chipper Jones time in Durham came in 1992, so the polyester Bulls uniform and plain blue hat fit the era perfectly.  The face is not a dead ringer for Chipper, but it's not too far away.  The base is also kind of a cool oval shape, though I would liked to have seen a bobble of Chipper hitting.  The back of course features the most important feature of the bobble:

The retired number 10 of Chipper Jones.  I was curious about where and when Jones started wearing the number 10, but could not find any history of his jersey numbers in the minors.  Overall, I really like this bobble head and proudly place it on my Durham Bulls shelf in my man cave.