Tom Iurlano was 5 when his late aunt Margaret Tomko treated him to a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game at Forbes Field in Oakland.

He came home with a souvenir he still holds dear and keeps on display in his O’Hara home.

“She bought me a L.A. Dodgers bobblehead,” said Iurlano of his first-ever bobblehead. “I remember walking around with it, making it bobble, bobble, bobble.”

That ceramic bobblehead depicts a cherub-looking smiling player holding a baseball bat and sporting a blue LA hat and #23.

That initial gameday souvenir sparked a lifelong love of collecting mostly baseball-themed bobbleheads.

Iurlano works in the software industry and is a married father of two grown children.

His preferred method of snagging a sporty bobblehead isn’t via online shopping but rather by visiting each MLB baseball stadium for a game.

To date, he’s visited every MLB baseball stadium except Toronto and Arizona to enjoy games and bring home bobbleheads.

Joyce Hanz | TRIBLIVE Bobblehead collector Tom Iurlano of O’Hara photographed on Nov. 3 in his baseball-themed sports lounge in his home.  

“I could always buy one (bobblehead), but it’s more fun to go there,” he said.

He hopes to visit the last two stadiums in the near future to complete his mascot collection.

Joyce Hanz | TRIBLIVE Pittsburgh Pirate bobbleheads represented in different likenesses on display at the home of O’Hara resident Tom Iurlano.  

His collection of 99 bobbleheads is mostly on display inside custom glass cases hanging on the wall of his Roberto Clemente, baseball-themed/Pittsburgh sports lounge in his home, dubbed “the downstairs.”

“It’s very loud down here. The World Series just finished and I immerse myself here,” said Iurlano of having his own space to enjoy his collection and sports.

Iurlano continues to bobbleheads and enjoys sharing the quirky and fun aspect of the collection with his family.

Family trips to baseball field destinations have included Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles, Detroit and more.

An “on-loan” non-sports-themed Wiz Kalifa bobblehead is currently with his out-of-town adult son, Tommy Iurlano, 22.

Other non-baseball bobbleheads include a sprinkling of Steelers and Penguins bobbleheads and Purdue and Pitt, but baseball mascots and players dominate the collection.

Iurlano built his spacious sports room specifically as a sports oasis when he and his wife, Kathy Iurlano, built their home in 2003.

Roberto Clemente pictures, life-sized images and baseball memorabilia fill the room and on one wall, the ever-smiling bobbleheads remain in pristine condition, thanks to glass storage cases.

The first papier-mache and ceramic player bobbleheads were created in 1960 and included heads of Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, Roger Morris and Willie Mays, according to the Bobblehead Hall of Fame and Museum in Milwaukee.

A lone Jesus bobblehead, a gift from his daughter Francesca Iurlano and wife from one of their trips to Venice, Italy, is on display by a big screen television, next to bobbleheads of the Pittsburgh Panther and President Donald Trump.

Joyce Hanz | TRIBLIVE A 1960s bobblehead of L.A. Dodgers #32 player Sandy Koufax, the third-oldest living baseball Hall of Famer.  

The oldest bobbleheads in his collection are made of ceramic and the more modern figures are plastic.

Bobbleheads gained attention during the 1960s when they were used as baseball mascot giveaways.

A row of bobbleheads depicting Pittsburgh Pirates in a variety of pirate expressions begins with a cherubic-looking young pirate and evolves into a more sinister, bearded pirate.

Iurlano’s three favorite bobbleheads?

“My original L.A. Dodgers, Larry Fitzgerald and Roberto Clemente,” he said. “I remember my mother telling me the day Clemente died, on New Year’s Day.”

Some of the bobbleheads require batteries to play music and talk.

The family thinks Tom’s interest in bobbleheads is endearing.

“I think it’s cool,” Kathy Iurlano said of the bobblehead collection that she jokingly said “she never dusts.”

Daughter Francesca Iurlano and son Tommy Iurlano have an annual tradition of gifting their father with a new baseball they both autograph with Father’s Day wishes and baseball has remained a family tradition that connects them.

“We went on a lot of baseball trips. That’s his thing,” said Francesca Iurlano, 28. “Growing up, we would visit my grandma, who lives nearb,y and he would have his bobbleheads there.”

A Central Catholic alumnus, Iurlano graduated with a mechanical engineering degree from the University of Pittsburgh and earned a master’s degree from Duquesne University.

He said the bobbleheads are a great reminder of his love of baseball.

“It’s like a timeline of my life,” he said. “I have a Dan Marino bobblehead because I went to high school with him.”

Joyce Hanz | TRIBLIVE Jesus and Pitt Panther bobbleheads on display at the home of O’Hara resident Tom Iurlano.  

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