This can’t be right, can it? Nothing about bobblheads is bad. David Eckstein is nodding in agreement even as I write this.

However, the New York Mets seem to believe their bobbleheads are cursed. Or, at least, the people whose likenesses are represented by bobbleheads.

Maybe too many people are sticking pins in the bobbleheads? Breaking off pieces? Is this a sort of voodoo thing?

My friend back in SoCal, David Lassen, sent me the pertinent link. David may have almost as big an fascination/obsession with bobbleheads as I do. (Just sayin’, David.)

The Mets seem convinced they have problems with bobbleheads, and the august New York Times has handled the issue under the headline: The Mets’ Bobblehead Curse Lives.

What evidence do they present?

The photo with the story (which you can see at the link, above) … shows bobbles of Mike Piazza, John Franco, Kaz Matsui, Pedro Martinez, David Wright and Paul Lo Duca.

The story notes that the “curse” seems particularly acute for players who have been celebrated in a bobblehead sponsored by Gold’s Horseradish. (The Mets may have other bobblehead sponsors)

The story notes that all of the players involved were struggling by the time their bobblehead was given away, or struggled the next year. David Wright being the biggest exception, till this year and last, when he was hurt.

They note that last year’s bobble, Jason Bay, wasn’t even in the lineup on his bobblehead day. And this year’s honoree, Ike Davis, is on the disabled list ahead of his bobble being distributed, on July 19.

However, I have a sense that we could look at all bobbleheads everywhere and most of the players will seem to have dropped off in production markedly.

A curse? Well, that’s more fun, but I think it’s probably more like the “Sports Illustrated Cover Curse.”

That is, to create enough attention to get a bobblehead (or an SI cover) you probably are having a career-best stretch.  And the odds are, you will not continue to play at that level. Because the decision to make a doll of you or put you on the SI cover was made while you were playing outta your mind, and the actual appearance of the doll or cover comes some days or weeks later … and then is remembered even deeper into the future. When you are not the player you were for that golden week or month or year.

(I’d say this pretty much applies to the Dodgers bobbleheads we looked at a few days ago.)

Not so much a curse as a reversion to the mean. But, still, fun. Anything about bobbleheads is fun.