If you find yourself holding up cutouts of the heads of beloved sitcom characters while strangers spit gumballs at them, there's a fair chance you work in Minor League Baseball.
Such was the case on Saturday for the Brooklyn Cyclones employee who staffed the "second spitter contest" to start the festivities for Seinfeld Night, the annual event and hallmark promotion for Mets' High-A affiliate in Coney Island.
As much "a 'Seinfeld' convention" as a baseball game, the 12th iteration of the promo featured two cast appearances, a "man hands" marathon jar-opening contest, a puffy-shirted pirate race, the classic postgame Elaine dance contest and the option for fans to go home with three different bobbleheads.
And, of course, there was also that second spitter contest, in which fans attempted to land gumballs (unchewed) into a bucket by ricocheting them off fathead cutouts of Newman and Kramer -- the duo who, in one Season 3 episode, claim Mets great Keith Hernandez spit on them in response to their heckling after a loss to the Phillies. Jerry, in a parody of a scene in the 1991 film "JFK," advances a "second spitter theory" after grilling them about the "magic loogie" that defied the laws of physics to ricochet off of Kramer and hit Newman.
Every fan received a bobblehead of Kramer -- in classic pose just inside Jerry's apartment door -- and those who bought one of three different ticket packages also received bobbleheads of two of Elaine's boyfriends -- Tom "Bad Breaker Upper" Gallop and Dan "Tony The Mimbo" Cortese. Gallop and Cortese were the two cast members on hand. Jonathan Wolff, who composed the show's theme song, threw out a first pitch.
Although the Cyclones lost, 6-3, to the White Sox-affiliated Winston-Salem Dash, the Maimonides Park crowd of 6,578 got the last laugh.
"Nobody has left yet," voice of the Cyclones Justin Rocke said on the broadcast. "Everybody is waiting for the big Elaine dance contest down on the field."
Featuring multiple heats of up to nine dancers, the contest was packed with participants wearing vintage '90s women's power suits or midi floral dresses. One fan in a Keith Hernandez jersey elicited boos, while awkward arm jerks and "little kicks" were greeted with enthusiastic cheers.