PRESS RELEASE – Last weekend, the Trenton Thunder, Minor League affiliate of the New York Yankees, introduced a new promotion inspired by the television show “Jersey Shore”, the “Fifth Inning Fist Pumps”.
The fist pump is a celebratory gesture that was recently made popular on the MTV show “Jersey Shore” by characters “The Situation” and “Snooki”. The Thunder were inspired by the use of the gesture on the popular show that takes place in their home state of New Jersey.
The promotion is simple. In the middle of the 5th Inning of select Thunder home games, techno music is played over the public address system and staff, fans and players alike are encouraged to “fist pump” via a graphic on the left field screen. Fist Pumpers throughout the stadium are shown on the right field video screen while a fog machine and strobe light flash out of the press box production room.
A new wrinkle in the promotion will be introduced when the team returns from the road. In another homage to the show “Jersey Shore”, the fan who demonstrates the “best fist pumping” as determined by the Thunder production crew, will receive a “GTL” Gift Pack.
Urbandictionary.com defines GTL as, “Stands for ‘Gym, Tan, Laundry.’ The process of staying fresh and mint. Must be done everyday to achieve maximum potential. Side effects include fist pumping. Coined by the eloquent Mike “The Situation” Sorrentino from MTV’s ground breaking Jersey Shore.”
The GTL Gift Pack will include prizes from Gold’s Gym of Lawrenceville, NJ, Hollywood Tans of Bordentown, NJ and Captain Dry Clean of Ewing, NJ (two locations).
“As the highest level of baseball and longest running Minor League Baseball team in the state of New Jersey, we consider this the official “Jersey Shore” promotion in baseball,” said Thunder General Manager Will Smith. “We’ve only done it twice and people have been asking and commenting about it on our Twitter and Facebook pages. It’s just good clean fun that anyone with one arm can do!”
The “fist pump” gesture has a long history including being used by LA Dodger Kirk Gibson to celebrate his famous walk off home run in the 1988 World Series and by Tom Cruise during his exuberant appearance on the Oprah Winfrey show in which he celebrated his romantic relationship with Katie Holmes. Now, people of all ages are fist pumping during the Fifth Inning of games at New Jersey’s top Minor League Baseball team, the Trenton Thunder.
The Thunder return to Trenton to face the Erie SeaWolves on Monday, May 24 for a four game series.
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