The Promotions Collector

            Promotional giveaways by tracks have become pretty commonplace these days, although I sometimes wonder if the fans have any idea of the logistical problems that are sometimes involved.

            A case in point is when Santa Anita heavily advertised free sports travel bags one year, then was forced at the last minute to advise fans that they wouldn’t be available on the designated day.  Seems the ship containing 60,000 of the things sustained some damage and was still sitting in a port in Taiwan instead of being in Los Angeles.  Due to credit to Santa Anita on that one, they gave out rain checks and free passes to the track for whenever the bags would be available, and offered to mail them at no charge to out of town visitors who had ventured to Arcadia expecting a bag.

            It reminded me a day some years back when I asked the publicity director at Hollywood Park for how many fans he estimated would show up the following day for, as memory serves, a jacket promotion.  “Maybe 50,000,” he allowed, fidgeting more than usual.  “I just hope we get them in time so people don’t tear down the track, the boat from Taiwan is late and last we heard it might get in about 6:00 in the morning.”

            That Hollywood Park is still standing attests to the fact that the boat made it in time, and also points out how well the West Coast tracks are supporting the Taiwanese economy.

            I happened to mention these incidents to a friend of mine over drinks one evening recently during a casual conversation, which caused him to sit straight up in his chair.

            “Ron,” he said, grabbing his glass with a shaky hand.  “Don’t you know I’m trying to quit?”  He motioned to the bartender to refill his glass, which was a double bourbon.

            “Well,” I started to say, “if you’re trying to quit, why are you ordering another…”

            “No, no, it’s not the booze, as a matter of fact that’s the only thing that keeps me going.  What I’m trying to quit,” he began in a low whisper, looking around nervously to make sure no one else could overhear, “is to stop collecting racetrack giveaways.”

            “Racetrack giveaways?”

            “Look,” he confided, “it’s no secret.  I’m hooked, have been for years.  Everytime a track gives out a free gift, I simply can’t resist.  The day that The Meadowlands gave out ‘jockey’ dishware I went through the turnstiles thirteen times!

            “And it’s not just the souvenirs themselves, just seeing a promotion advertised in a newspaper drives me wild.  Which reminds me, would you mind taking off that Bay Meadows tie tack?  It makes me nervous.”

            “Well, if you insist…”

            “Thanks.  Anyway, it reached the point where I developed an obsession for anything that a racetrack was giving away.  Pretty soon I got to the point where I couldn’t afford to play the horses, I just kept buying general admission tickets and collecting whatever it was they were handing out that day.  Financially those dollar beer promotions got pretty important after awhile.”

            “Did you consider consulting a therapist?”

            “You mean like a shrink?  Oh sure, I tried that, and we were getting along pretty well until the third session.  That was the day he knew I was going to Hialeah and asked if I could pick up some extra plastic flamingos for his kids.  Went through the admission gate five times before they ran out of them.”

            “So you never went back to see him?”

            “How could I?  He also asked me if I’d go to a track the following week that was raffling off a horse.  I thought to myself, suppose I won the horse.  I mean, there goes the patio furniture.”

            “I can see you have a problem.”

            “Oh, it wasn’t always like this.  In fact,” he said, ordering another double bourbon, “it started quite innocently.  First there were Secretariat keychains, I didn’t see any harm in picking up a couple of those.  Then another track came out with Silky Sullivan keychains, I had a friend in California get me half a dozen of those.  Then I read about keychains that looked like pari-mutuel tickets, and before I realized what was happening I would have sold my Mother for a keychain.

            “Then tracks started experimenting with new things.  Y’know, buttons, badges, calendars, photos.  I papered a wall at home with Calder calendars.  As it got worse I stooped to stealing ‘I Saw Affirmed’ badges off of bars during a trip to Hollywood Park when people weren’t looking.  I started scouring turf clubs after the races looking for discarded John Henry postcards and little flags with the track name on them.  I knew it was becoming a sickness, but I couldn’t help myself.

            “And it only got worse as I drifted into the hard stuff.  There were caps and sweatshirts and raincoats and jackets.  Playing cards and T-shirts and tote bags and tube socks.  Oh, God, I’ll never forget the day I got my first pair of tube socks.  It was…”  He looked at his drink and began to sob.

            “There, there,” I tried to reassure him.

            “It’s okay,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes.  “It’s just that I knew that I had reached the point of no return.  Pretty soon my closet was full of T-shirts and jackets and I threw out all my suits to make room for them.  Cost me my job when I went to work one day wearing a ‘Where It’s At’ T-shirt from Hollywood Park and some fuchsia colored running shorts from some other track, I forget which one.

            Just like Frankie Machine in that movie, I couldn’t kick the habit.  I’d spend hours reading newspapers from all over the country in search of promotions.  Flew two thousand miles one time just to get a stuffed horse.

            “Then the promotions got even more brutal.  There were flash cameras and transistor radios, binoculars and wristwatches, portable calculators and cheap stop watches.  Of course, I knew none of it was worth much, but I couldn’t resist.  And I knew it was serious one afternoon when I mugged a kid for his Sportsman’s Park visor cap in the parking lot.  I knew I needed professional help, but after the experience with the shrink I didn’t know where to turn.

            “Gamblers Anonymous wasn’t any help, and the guy at A.A. suggested I go to a track for a Coffee Mug Day.  I even wrote Dear Abby and she suggested I quit cold turkey.  A lot she knows,” he said, staring into his glass.  “Bet she doesn’t have three Seattle Slew belt buckles.

            “So it just went from bad to worse,” he sighed.  “You heard that Phyllis divorced me, didn’t you?”

            “Yeah, but I didn’t want to pry…”

            “That’s okay, I don’t mind talking about it.

            “Y’know, she really tried to help me.  She’d come home from work and find the OTB sweatshirts in her lingerie drawer, she wouldn’t complain.  I’d throw tote bags in the closet on top of her shoes, she never said a word.  Even when I threw out her wedding dress to make room for three Santa Anita windbreakers, she’d ask if she could help me organize the bumper stickers I’d collected to see which ones would look best on the car.

            “I know for a fact she discovered my stash of River Downs playing cards that I kept in the chandelier, but she never once threw that in my face.

            “But I guess the crowning blow was when I threw her Mother’s stemware out and replaced it in the cabinet with Kentucky Derby glasses and plastic Preakness cups.”

            “I can see why that might have upset her.”

            “Oh, it wasn’t even that so much, it was when I told her that she couldn’t even use the glasses.  I mean, they’re pretty fragile anyway, and the dishwasher is pretty rough on the Derby lettering.  So I told her to go out and buy some Dixie cups if she wanted a drink.  That’s when she moved out.

            “After that even my friends stopped dropping by.  I suppose part of it was when I told them they couldn’t use the giveaway ashtrays I had from different tracks, which was when they started calling me the Felix Unger of the racing set.  Though I still can’t figure out why they thought it was such a big deal when I told them to go out in the backyard on account of I didn’t want anyone using my Cahokia Downs toilet seat.  I mean, I’d been going out back for two years.”

            “Fair weather friends,” I assured him.

            “But I guess the final blow, when I knew I had really reached the bottom, was when I couldn’t get into my kitchen, since it was filled with thermos jugs, beer mugs and monogrammed plastic bowls.  And there was the fact that I’d spent too much money on a burglar alarm system to protect all the gold pendants and pen and pencil sets I’d accumulated.  Not to mention the cameras, watches, binoculars, and a silver plated tote board replica.

            “Of course, maybe the burglar alarm system wasn’t really all that necessary, because by that time I couldn’t sleep very well anyway.  The giveaway horse blankets itched a lot.  And the alarm clock I got at a Pennsylvania track kept waking me up every half hour playing ‘Call To The Post’.  Didn’t have the heart to shut it off, especially since it had a miniature horse that popped out neighed after the song.

            “But,” he said quietly, “now that I’ve explained the problem I thought that maybe you could help me.”

            “Me?”

            “Yeah, I thought you might understand when I tell you about how I broke my leg.”

            “How did you do that?”

            “Oh, it was part of the problem.  You see, one of the tracks was having a Grab Bag giveaway on closing day.  Y’know, where they hand out all the leftover gifts from earlier days.  I figured if I started out early enough I could get two or three deck chairs with Round Table’s picture, maybe half a dozen Spectacular Bid safety pin sharpeners, a couple of Fit To Fight raincoats, and a toaster autographed by Jerry Bailey.  So I was in kind of a hurry when I tripped over one of the umbrellas in the living room.  Forgot which track that one was from, but I remember it was pink, yellow and green.  Anyway, when I woke up in the hospital and saw the cast on my leg, I knew I had to turn to someone to help me, which is why I’d like to ask you a special favor as an old friend.”

            “I’ll do anything I can to help,” I said seriously.

            “I knew I could count on you,” he said quietly.

            “It’ll be difficult to find someone who can cure you, but I’ll do my best.”

            “Cure?” he said, suddenly outraged.  “What cure?  I wanta find out which track is planning to give out monogrammed umbrella stands!”