Collector: Don McLeese
Collection Name: Bobblemania: Baseball and Beyond

Collector Statement:

"There was a time when “journalist” and “pack rat” were a matched set. Journalists were inherently collectors—of information, sources, tips, awards, appointment and address books, souvenirs from reporting adventures, clips of stories that could provide context for future stories.  Journalists would talk about “saving string,” strands that didn’t fit a particular story but could eventually be gathered into a bigger one, maybe a better one.

As a journalist focusing on popular music and culture, I accumulated massive collections of albums and books and all sorts of other pop-culture exotica. I was a “pack rat” before “hoarder” became the tag for a psychological disorder. I started “collecting” long before I became a journalist, and I have never stopped.

Hence, these bobbleheads. Over the decades since I joined the University of Iowa faculty, journalists no longer need to save everything (or much of anything) and cart it around with them.  With computer technology, pretty much every last scrap you need is right at your fingertips—on your laptop or your phone, in the cloud and your search engine. Accumulating artifacts has become suspect, but it’s a hard habit to break. The passion that spurred my boyhood collections of baseball cards and 45 r.p.m. records, and later my journalistic archives, has never diminished. But it has found different outlets.

Every one of these bobbleheads has a story to tell. And, no, I have no idea how many I possess.  Somewhere in the hundreds. I hope it’s less than a thousand. (Because more than that would be crazy, right?)  It started with giveaway promotions at baseball games. I am a diehard Chicago Cubs fan, and my Cubs memorabilia extends way beyond bobbleheads. But the internet and eBay have made it too easy to find and track a wider range of attractive obscurities. I’m like a record collector who is always on the hunt, and my bobblehead collection continues to grow.

Here is a small fraction of it (many more are in my office in the Adler Journalism Building). As I retire from the faculty at the end of the spring ’24 semester, I feel honored by my inclusion in “My Collections.”  I consider this my academic lifetime achievement award."

Image Gallery

Featured collections items:

  • Ron Santo
  • Hee Sop Choi
  • Dennis Rodman
  • Robin Zander/Rick Nielson
  • Greg Maddox/ Mark Prior
  • Harry Caray
  • Liberace
  • Ernie Banks
  • Bernie Sanders
  • Ty Cobb
  • Caitlin Clark
  • Don McLeese
  • Elvis
  • Jimi Hendrix
  • El Mago
  • Tony Bennett
  • Mark Twain
  • Mahatma Gandhi
  • Rizzo/ Schwarber
  • Cubs Day of the Dead
  • Herky
  • Archie
  • Buddy Holly
  • Alfred Hitchcock
  • Anthony Fauci
  • Javy Baez
  • Peter Gammons
  • Mother Theresa
  • Pope Francis
  • Keith Richards
  • Castro
  • Twain
  • Chorizo
  • Dave Grohl
  • Bill Murray
  • Buck O Neil
  • Sammy Sosa
  • PNC Washington
  • Ernie Banks
  • Las Vegas
  • Obamas
  • MLK
  • Abbott & Costello