For today's Brewers game against the New York Mets, all fans in attendance will receive a Travis Shaw "Mayor of Ding Dong City" bobblehead, commemorating Milwaukee’s third baseman with the excellent nickname.
Shaw, who was acquired last year in a trade with the Red Sox, was one of the Brewers’ most productive players in 2017 and he leads the team in home runs and RBI this season.
The bobblehead features Shaw standing at a podium and going to bat for his candidacy as Mayor of Ding Dong City. The incumbent – and likely unopposed – mayor’s victory would seem to be guaranteed, but, hey, every candidate has to run.
So, why is Shaw the Mayor of Ding Dong City? In case you missed it, the nickname was given to him by Red Sox writer Jared Carrabis when he was playing for Boston. The full story is here, but this is the gist:
Carrabis used to play pickup Wiffleball with friends in the Shaws’ parking lot. Hitting the ball off the side of the building was ruled a home run but Carrabis' homers always went over the roof. Carrabis' friend Nick called home runs "ding dongs" and began to call Carrabis the Mayor of Ding Dong City, a name Carrabis felt fit Shaw perfectly.
"I always like to rally behind the guy who could use a push from the fans," Carrabis noted.
Anyway, if you’re heading to Miller Park on Sunday, make sure to cast your vote by picking up a Mayor of Ding Dong City bobblehead, courtesy of U.S. Cellular. And find out where to get a Ding Dong City Mayor t-shirt to were there here.
Born in Milwaukee but a product of Shorewood High School (go ‘Hounds!) and Northwestern University (go ‘Cats!), Jimmy never knew the schoolboy bliss of cheering for a winning football, basketball or baseball team. So he ditched being a fan in order to cover sports professionally - occasionally objectively, always passionately. He's lived in Chicago, New York and Dallas, but now resides again in his beloved Brew City and is an ardent attacker of the notorious Milwaukee Inferiority Complex.
After interning at print publications like Birds and Blooms (official motto: "America's #1 backyard birding and gardening magazine!"), Sports Illustrated (unofficial motto: "Subscribe and save up to 90% off the cover price!") and The Dallas Morning News (a newspaper!), Jimmy worked for web outlets like CBSSports.com, where he was a Packers beat reporter, and FOX Sports Wisconsin, where he managed digital content. He's a proponent and frequent user of em dashes, parenthetical asides, descriptive appositives and, really, anything that makes his sentences longer and more needlessly complex.
Jimmy appreciates references to late '90s Brewers and Bucks players and is the curator of the unofficial John Jaha Hall of Fame. He also enjoys running, biking and soccer, but isn't too annoying about them. He writes about sports - both mainstream and unconventional - and non-sports, including history, music, food, art and even golf (just kidding!), and welcomes reader suggestions for off-the-beaten-path story ideas.
