One little known thing about baseball teams (and sports teams in general) is that fans can request “Fan Packs”.
Fan Packs are little packages that teams send out to fans that request them. Many include small tokens (schedules, baseball cards, tatoos) and nice letters from teams. Other give out some quality things.
I requested one from the Red Sox a few years ago, since they had one of the better fan packs. I received a small amount of dirt from Fenway Park, which was a nice addition to the normal stuff you can receive. I also received a signed photo from Rudy Seanez; not a great player, but a free autograph for sending an e-mail. I know that the Red Sox still send the Fenway dirt, so they are worth contacting, if you are into that.
Another good fan pack was from the Cardinals; a few years ago, I e-mailed for a fan pack and received a T-shirt for the Cardinals website. I wore it to a few games, but it was primarily a undershirt since there wasn’t much printing on it. I don’t believe they send those any more.
This morning, I e-mailed all 30 Major League teams; I instantly found out a few things.
First off, the e-mail addresses I had for the Nationals and Cardinals did not work.
I quickly received e-mails stating the Braves, Phillies, Athletics, and Twins only accept fan pack requests by snail mail; I won’t be getting those. I also received Out of Office E-mails from the Rockies and Yankees saying someone would review my e-mail eventually.
I received a PDF fan pack from the Padres, which included kid games and a sheet to color. It also had information about joining some Padre Groups and the 2010 schedule. I was a little disappointed.
Finally, I received a nice e-mail from the Indians stating that my fan pack would be mailed in the next 2 weeks. I’ll be interested to see if any other teams send confirmation e-mails.
There are 2 ways to go about ordering fan packs. You can go to a team’s website and click on the “Contact Us” link. You should be able to request one there, no matter the sport. The other way, at least for MLB teams, is to use this e-mail:
fanfeedback@(teamname).mlb.com
So, for the Indians, you’d e-mail fanfeedback@indians.mlb.com.
