In MLB.com Shop Adventures, Kevin Lager pines nostalgic on the Internet’s premier seller and shipper of goods, MLB.com Shop.  Have your own story to tell?  You can start by getting Kevin’s attention here: @xolager, or by dropping off a comment at the end of this article.

Attention holiday shoppers…

‘Tis the season that the good folks at MLB.com Shop start revealing irresistible deal after irresistible deal.  Before you bite the shiny lure dangling in front of you, please sit down, buckle yourself in, and let one of my own personal MLB.com Shop adventures unfold in front of you.

I can assure you this is well worth reading if you’re considering doing any shopping on MLB.com Shop.  That’s a promise, my friends.  Also, getcha popcorn ready. (Skimmers like Chris can just read the bold bits)

Unless you’re sitting back and waiting to get fat like Matt Holliday, money is tight this time of year.  MLB.com Shop has always understood the struggles of the common man, which can be witnessed by their string of sales so far this Christmas Season:

• December 3, 2009: Take 15% off custom jerseys
• December 5, 2009: Take 20% off men’s fleece
• December 7, 2009: Buy one, get one 40% off
• December 8, 2009: Buy one, get one 40% off (sale extended!)
• December 10, 2009: Take up to 20% off women’s kids, & accessories merch
• December 13, 2009: Take 20% off your entire order

Hard to resist, eh?  MLB.com Shop is on our side.  Similar deals were flying through the atmosphere at this time last year as well, but I resisted with the will power of Grady Little in the 2003 ALCS.  On December 31, 2008, however, MLB.com Shop made me an offer I could not refuse.  It’s the hanging slider of sales: Buy One, Get One Free.

I’m my own man.  I make my own rules.  So naturally, I begged and pleaded with my wife so that I may be allowed to take advantage of MLB.com Shop’s overwhelming generosity.  With trembling hands and mouth agape, I made the following order:

Item: #1
Description: Cleveland AL Franchise Authentic 1948 Bob Feller Jersey by Mitchell & Ness
Quantity: 1 @ $218.97*

Item: #2
Description: Montreal Expos Authentic 1969 Rusty Staub Jersey by Mitchell & Ness
Quantity: 1 @ $0.00**

*Buy one

**Get one free

Le Grand Orange

$0.00 for an authentic Rusty Staub jersey!  Le Grand Orange. Hero of Lowetide.  2009 was going to be the best year ever.  Bob Feller is no slouch himself.  Hooray for MLB.com Shop, and hooray for me.

Then, swiftly through a hungover first day of 2009, the following notices jammed their way into my inbox like fastballs up and in:

• January 1, 2009, 9:17 AM: Order confirmation on two jerseys
• January 1, 2009, 3:39 PM: Cancellation notice for Item #2
• January 1, 2009, 3:39 PM: Shipping confirmation for Item #1 (which MLB.com called “my order”)

Funny thing was, the solo shipping of Item #1 wasn’t “my order.”  My order was for both Item #1 and Item #2, with Item #2 being free.

Here’s where MLB.com Shop deserves a lot of credit.  You see, even though they had no real inventory of Rusty Staub jerseys, they kept the illusion of inventory on their website so that I could imagine myself in the jersey and feel good about it.  MLB.com Shop wanted me to feel good.

So, when it came time to ship a non-existent jersey to my attention, MLB.com Shop cancelled the free part of my order and shipped (and billed!) me for the full price of the other part of my order.  How saintly.

Hard-throwing Bob Feller

So as I wake up sometime in the late afternoon in a beer & champagne-induced stupor, I am greeted with the news that MLB.com Shop has, due to a discrepancy between imaginary inventory and real inventory, done the leg work for me and altered my Buy One Get One Free order into a Buy One Get Nothing Free order.

Normally, I’d think this was an awesome deal and I’d tip my cap to MLB.com Shop for making sure I get at least part of my order while they still get all of my money.  Unfortunately for me and for MLB.com Shop, I really wanted that Rusty Staub jersey.  Also, with a stubborn background in mathematics, I somewhat foolishly thought I wasn’t getting a very good deal any more.

MLB.com Shop understood that customer satisfaction was paramount, so they refunded me $13.42 for the shipping of the non-existent Rusty Staub silks.  Then they took customer service one step forward by refunding me an additional $0.03 for reasons unexplained (although I assume to this day, it was done out of love).

By January 8, 2009, I received a final notice from MLB.com Shop that my order was complete, I was billed for the entire order minus the shipping of a free jersey they didn’t have. Sweet, eh?  MLB.com Shop’s email department mustn’t have been in communication with their telephone service, however, because I had been phoning and trying every day since January 1 to cancel the entire order.

What’s that, you say?  I was being unreasonable?  In theory, I agree with you, but my stubbornly mathematical way of thinking refused to let me sleep comfortably at night because it couldn’t make both side of the following equations equal in terms of value per dollar:

Two Jerseys @ $218.97 = One Jersey @ ($218.97 – $13.42 – $0.03)

Luckily, there were very few hoops for me to jump through to get my money back.  All I had to do was (1) spend hours on the phone (most of it on hold), (2) talk to what seemed like an infinite supply of customer service representatives who “didn’t have the authority to handle my refund, but would be happy to transfer me to their supervisor if I wouldn’t mind spending a few more minutes on hold,” (3) leave what seemed like dozens of voice mail messages with so-called supervisors because they must have always have been too busy to answer their phones once I was transferred, and (4) make sure I called back every day at least once with the fanatical idea of maybe (hopefully!) talking to once of these alleged service reps with authority so that the mathematical side of my mind could be satisfied with a full refund.

Huzzah!  By February 11, 2009, I had my refund. I know that in a season where money is tight, January 1 to February 11 might seem like a lifetime, but let’s look at things from MLB.com Shop’s perspective:

• January 15, 2009: I shipped back (unopened), Item #1 (the only item I was shipped, the non-free Bob Feller jersey)
• January 19, 2009: My order reached the border (I’m in Canada, MLB.com Shop is in the US of A)
• January 22, 2009: My order left Canada, destined for MLB.com Shop’s… uh… headquarters?  What do they work out of?  Maybe it’s the back of a van?

So it makes perfect sense that I wasn’t refunded until February 11, 2009, which (coincidentally), was the same day I phoned an MLB.com Shop supervisor and left a voice mail with the same shipping itinerary listed above.  Easy as pie, I had my refund.

Curse my mathematical mind, though, because it wasn’t done clicking and whirring just yet.

First of all, thank you (the reader!) for following me this far into my adventure.  I know it’s been a little tl;dr, but the I didn’t want to sell this adventure short.

My mathematical mind thought it was owed something. The gall, eh?  Since $218.97-$13.42-$0.03 of my money was in MLB.com Shop’s hands for almost a month and a half, and since I spent enough hours to justify a second job trying to get a hold of MLB.com Shop personnel with power, I thought my time was more valuable than $0/hour (minus interest), so I wanted something back from MLB.com Shop for my efforts.

They offered me a coupon for MLB.com Shop.

I refused.

Silly me.