The Potomac Nationals might be 12.5 games out of first place, but they already have to be this year’s Minor League Baseball champion when it comes to zanily brilliant promotional giveaways.

We previously got our giggle on sharing about the P-Nats “Gobblehead”– a wonderfully inane bobblehead that was part MLB star Bryce Harper, part turkey.

Now, we think the P-Nats – the class A minor league affiliate of the Washington Nationals -- might have just gone and one-upped themselves.

The first 1,250 fans attending the P-Nats July 8th game will receive the “Ode To Tommy John Surgery” – a statue that pays homage to the medical procedure that has saved many a baseball pitcher’s career.

As you can tell from the picture, the statue is not a particular player, but rather half a headless torso with a sort-of anatomical rendering of the elbow area where the surgery is performed. To really hammer home the theme, the statue boasts a removable ulnar collateral ligament – or UCL. In Tommy John Surgery, a player’s damaged UCL is replaced by a tendon from another part of his or her body.

“Never before has the world of MiLB seen a statue commemorating baseball's most infamous surgery!” the P-Nats proclaimed in a press release.

For the unfamiliar, the late Dr. Frank Jobe pioneered the Tommy John procedure. The surgery is named after the first player to have it done – Tommy John. After the receiving the surgery in 1974, John returned to baseball two years later and pitched another 14 seasons.

From a promo perspective, the P-Nats’ promotion is especially on point because it ties into the medical mission of its sponsor -- Anderson Orthopaedic Clinic.

As part of the giveaway fun, the P-Nats planned to display Tommy-John-Surgery-related tributes on the outfield jumbo-tron video board during the game. Expected tributes to Jobe, John and Washington Nationals players and farmhands who have undergone the surgery were scheduled.

Somewhat curiously, the P-Nats were also hosting a celebration of 60 years of the “Grinch,” the classic Christmastime character invented by Dr. Seuss, on the same night as the statue giveaway. The celebration was, from what we can tell, totally unrelated to the “Ode To Tommy John Surgery.”

To which we say:

Stay random, Potomac Nationals. Stay random. It’s super entertaining.

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