A Smorgasbord! 7-Eleven Super Star Sports Coins

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here. 

 

  

Summer, 1984. The MLB All-Star Game is coming up next week. You've been playing baseball with all your buddies just about every glorious, free morning since school let out. And on any day of the week, you can ride your bike down to the 7-Eleven, stroll right in, and use some of your lawn-mowing money to get yourself a nice, cool Slurpee.  

 

 

Life is good. 

 

So in you go, straight for the Slurpee machine. You know the flavors: Coca-Cola, Cherry, Grape, Fanta. 

 

Today feels like a cherry day. And it's going to be extra good, because you know you'll be getting a bonus. A special baseball collector's coin will be adhered to the bottom of each Slurpee cup!

 

 

 

At some 7-Eleven locations, they just give you the first Slurpee cup on the stack, so whichever player coin you get is the one you're stuck with. But at this location, you have an "in". The employee who's usually behind the counter in the afternoon is a big baseball fan, and if you're a good kid, he'll let you rummage through the cups to find a coin you really want.

 

Thankfully, he's behind the counter today, and the store is pretty empty, so you get carte blanche. After about a dozen cups, you find your guy. 

 

It's the Wizard of Oz! 

 

You hand the cup over to the 7-Eleven guy, and he promptly fills it up with icy, slushy, cherry goodness and hands it back. You walk outside into the warm summer air, take a few sips, peel the coin off the bottom of the cup. and flip it over. 

  

 

"4 Consecutive Gold Glove Awards"

  

That's the ticket. You just love the way he plays shortstop—his speed, his nimbleness, his acrobatics. And he just seems like a fun baseball player. You've already found his base card and all-star card in the Topps set this summer, and you can't wait to add this coin to your collection.

 

You hop back on your bike, and on the short ride home you hatch an idea.

 

Last week, mom brought a box of Post cereal home from the supermarket, and it had a pretty cool license plate prize inside. You've been meaning to attach it to the back of your bike. When you get home, you open the top drawer of your dresser (otherwise known as your collection drawer) and take it out.

 

 

  

Oh yeah. This summer is going to be rad.

 

Now let's give credit where credit is due.

 

 

 

 

7-Eleven began in 1927 as the Southland Ice Company. Eventually Southland became a chain, and the company added more goods and services to each location. These "convenience stores" were a hit, and by 1946, the name was changed to 7-Eleven. This helped indicate to customers that the store hours were 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

 

Franchising began in 1961, and soon after the company would introduce the world to names like "Slurpee" and "Big Gulp".

 

By the 1980s, some 7-Eleven locations had arcades. And some even rented videos! Do any of you 1980s kids remember that?

 

As for these days, 7-Eleven is a global brand with about 85,000 locations in 20 different countries, including Thailand, South Korea, Denmark, Norway, and Australia.

 

If only they'd bring back the baseball coins. 

Some of the food-issue cards I've featured in this Smorgasbord series to this point have been fairly obscure, but I know a bunch of you must have some of these 7-Eleven coins in your collections.

 

So here are a few questions:

 

(1) Which coins do you have? 

 

(2) Were you big on Slurpees and Slush Puppies back then? If so, what was your favorite flavor? 

 

(3) Did you have any of those Post cereal license plates? Did you hang them under your bike seat?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading! 

A Smorgasbord! Gardner's Bakery Milwaukee Brewers

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

It's the beginning of May, 1985. Spring has officially arrived here in Milwaukee, and your Brewers are about a month into the season.

They're a few games below .500, but it's fine. You started collecting baseball cards a couple of years ago, and you're not slowing down now. The new 1985 Topps cards are pretty cool-looking. And that was the only thing on your mind as you went to bed last night after a good, hard week of school. 

Now it's early Saturday morning. The sun hasn't even risen yet, but an enticing aroma has started to fill the air about a half-mile away. Soon it twists, turns, and swirls its way through the quiet streets of your town, until it reaches your open window and comes through the screen. It's such a delightful smell that it wakes you right up and you take a deep whiff.

Freshly baked bread.

The guys in that little bakery down the road get busy pretty early. It's almost like they're fanning the steam from the ovens straight into your bedroom.

Well, it's not long before you're walking downstairs and into the kitchen. There isn't any fresh bread straight from the bakery down there, but you do have the next best thing: A loaf of bread from Gardner's. And some butter.

You take out a butter knife and a slice of bread, and you butter that thing up without even toasting it. And just when you thought things couldn't get much better, you see a little cellophane packet tucked inside the bread wrapper. The detective work that your brain does for you provides  the memory instantaneously. Last year, the Gardner's loaves came with a similar little packet. Cramming the first bite of buttered bread in your mouth, you quietly slip back upstairs and pull a shoebox from your closet. Soon enough, you confirm what was in that cellophane packet last year.

Baseball cards!

And what about the year before?

Yep! You had a couple of those, too. I mean, how could you forget? It was your first year of collecting.

You stack those four cards neatly in one hand, take another bite of bread from the other hand, and trot back downstairs. The Brewers cards in that new cellophane pack are waiting to be freed, and you waste no time peeling open the wrapper.

Whoa.

You weren't expecting something that resembled a TV set with red borders! But looking back at the 1983 and 1984 designs, you at least appreciate the originality.

What about the backs?

You flip the cards over.

Okay, they're just like the regular 1985 Topps set—only it's blue with black text, instead of green with red text. That's within your threshold of comprehension.

Then you flip them back over to the front, and take another look at those red TV sets. It's still kind of weird. But a baseball card is a baseball card, and they'll be joining your other Gardner's Bakery cards. I mean, are you going to say no to that awesome mustache on 1985 Rollie Fingers? Not a chance.

So, overall, you're feeling pretty good. And now that the sun has risen, you hear the neighborhood lawn mowers start to hum their familiar Saturday morning tune.

Soon, the aroma of freshly baked bread is replaced by what could be the second sweetest smell for a baseball-loving kid like you.

Freshly cut grass.

Dad's been teaching you how to use the mower in the backyard, and you can't wait to be the designated lawn-cutter on a regular basis. You're going to mow those stripes into the grass so perfect, your backyard will look just like the outfield at Milwaukee County Stadium.

Saturday morning. Fresh bread. Mown outfield grass. Baseball cards.

Life is good.

Now let's talk about Gardner's Bakery.

As evidenced by this example of a company truck, Gardner's got their start quite a while ago—in 1928, to be exact. Based on the scant information I've come across, they were a well-loved institution in the Madison/Milwaukee area for decades. But as too many of these stories go, Gardner's was seemingly absorbed by the Sara Lee Corp., which was eventually acquired by Bimbo Bakeries USA. Bimbo is very large baking group that owns numerous brands you've probably heard of, such as Arnold, Thomas', Entenmann's, Stroehmann, and Freihofer's.

Then, in January 2019, after more than 90 years of business, the Gardner's facility was closed down. Bimbo noted that production was going to be moved to other locations in order to optimize something or other. You know how it goes.

Here's an image from a happier time in the company's history.

But let's get back to the cards for a moment.

I find it so interesting that Topps and the Brewers decided to team up with one bakery in the Wisconsin area for three straight years. It's not that similar things didn't occur with other food-issue sets at the time. (Think of the Coca-Cola Topps cards from 1981, for example.) But in this case, it wasn't a collaboration with a huge, national brand like Coke or Burger King. It wasn't even a regional thing. It was just one team, and one local bakery. 

And then you have the card design. Topps didn't just stamp a Gardner's logo on the front of their flagship cards and re-number the backs, like those Coca-Cola cards. They created an entirely different design for the front. All for Gardner's Bakery!

Maybe some of the head honchos at Topps really loved bread.

Whatever forces combined to create these Gardner's cards, I'm happy they did. And if this is the first time you're seeing them, I hope you got a kick out of them.

Now I've got two questions for you:

Have you ever lived, worked, or gone to school close enough to a bakery to smell that wonderful aroma of baked goods?

If you were to compile a "best smells" top-10 list, would freshly baked bread find its way in?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

A Smorgasbord! 1992 Pacific McDonald's St. Louis Cardinals

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

 

It's 1992, and the St. Louis area is experiencing a cold, cold February. You and your schoolmates have had a few snow days this year, which is always fun, but those days are losing their luster. You're itching for baseball. Last year's Little League season seems like it happened a long time ago. And although you remind yourself that Spring Training is only about a month away, it seems like forever. 

 

But on this frigid afternoon, you get a little break. After you help Dad clear a fresh dusting of snow off the car and spread some rock salt on the sidewalks, he asks a simple question.

 

"You hungry?"

  

You are. So you nod your head.

 

"Hop in the car. Let's go get a burger."

 

Well, that was unexpected. But who are you to argue? You jump in the back seat and buckle up as dad starts the car. He heads into the house, gets mom, and as soon as the car warms up, the three of you drive off.

 

And if you weren't sure which burger joint you were going to, 10 minutes later you get the answer.

 

 

 

The Golden Arches.

 

Man, this is a treat. You can smell the fries as you step out of the car. Things are starting to look up.

 

And then the baseball universe confirms it.

 

On the walkway ahead of you, just outside the front door, you spot a small, rectangle-shaped object. It sure looks like the back of a baseball card, but why would it be there?

 

You get closer, and your assumption was right on. Here's what you find. 

 

 

 

 

Joe Torre? It's an old photo, but the card looks brand-new. What's going on here? Confused, you flip it over.

 

 

 

 

 

A McDonald's card??

 

Dad catches up, and you show him what you found.

 

"Hey, Joe Torre!" He says. (You're well aware that Mr. Torre was one of Dad's favorite players when he was your age.)

 

You point out the McDonald's logo on the front as he gives it back to you, and the two of you head inside with mom, who's patiently been holding the door.

 

At the front of the line, dad asks the cashier about the baseball card. She says that there's a whole set of them, designed to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Cardinals, and that they're available at McDonald's restaurants in the greater St. Louis area for $1.49 with a purchase. (The purchase helps raise money for Ronald McDonald Children's Charities.)

 

Dad looks at you and says, "We've got to get a set of these, bud." 

 

So that's what you do. As the team of McDonald's employees get busy assembling your order, you look back down at Joe Torre. 

 

There he is, smiling, in uniform, posing happily on a sunny day at the ballpark.

 

You take a deep breath. Yep, you can make it through another few weeks of winter if you had to. The card set will help. (The fries won't hurt, either.)

 

A minute later the food and the cards arrive on that trademark plastic tray, and you, mom, and dad find a booth. Eating your meal comes before even looking at the cards, you know that. And it's fine. You can wait. In fact, you wait all the way until you get in the car. You have a 10-minute ride home, and that's plenty of time to flip through the set. And it's a big one!

 

You count 55 cards in all. There are some older players in the set like Rogers Hornsby and Dizzy Dean. There are also a lot of guys you've heard Dad talk about, like Lou Brock and Bob Gibson. And then there are some newer guys, like Vince Coleman, Todd Worrell, and Ozzie Smith.

 

From the front seat, Dad says he wants some of those cards, and you're totally fine with that. Life is good.

 

 

Now let's talk about those Golden Arches. 

 

 

 

Richard and Maurice McDonald opened their first restaurant, McDonald's Bar-B-Q, in 1940. A few years later, they decided to revamp their menu, and transitioned to burgers, fries, and milkshakes. They also envisioned (and brought to fruition) a smarter, more efficient way to get food prepared in the kitchen and out to hungry customers. They dubbed it the "Speedee Service System". 

In 1953, the first franchised "McDonald's" restaurant opened, and it featured the iconic Golden Arches. Within a year or two, a salesman named Ray Kroc opened his first location. And a few years after that, Kroc had done so well that he purchased the entire company from the McDonald brothers for $2.7 million. After that, well, you could say things really took off. (If you'd like to watch a Hollywood version of the events, the 2016 film The Founder, starring Michael Keaton, is a good one.)

And if the winter has gotten you down, I hope a smiling Joe Torre up there has given you some good energy, too.

 

So how about it? Do any of you collectors have some fun childhood memories of going to McDonald's? This St. Louis Cardinals anniversary set is far from the only McDonald's set of trading cards. Do you have any others in your collection?

 

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading. 

A Smorgasbord! 1992-93 Clark Mario Bun

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

it's January, 1993. Hockey season is in full swing. You're in 9th grade now, and much of your life revolves around the sport. You watch highlights on ESPN every morning before school. You play on the local ice hockey team. And on the walk home from school during the week, you talk hockey with a couple of your classmates.

 

Oftentimes on those walks, you stop by the local stationery store. One friend always puts a couple of quarters into the Street Fighter II arcade cabinet positioned over by the magazines for sale. You watch for a while, because he's pretty good. But eventually you make your way over to the candy racks. And that's when you spot a new item. 

 

 

 

 

Mario Lemieux has a chocolate bar?!

Apparently, he does. You pick one up and take a closer look at the small line of white text toward the bottom of the wrapper.

 

1 OF 3 LEMIEUX CARDS INSIDE

 

Oh, yes. Right then and there, you know what you're buying.

 

Hockey cards are still exciting. Quite a few brands are now adding special "insert" cards to their packs, and it's kept you guys into the hobby. In fact, once a month you all meet at the local card show and scope out what's new.  

 

So a special 3-card set featuring Mario Lemieux? With a chocolate bonus? You point it out to your friends, and it's not long before they each grab one. Bill, the stationery guy,  watches from behind the register. You've just given him all the feedback he needs to add another box of Mario Buns to his next candy order.

 

Your Street Fighter buddy has finished kicking butt for now, and the bunch of you leave the store, continue the walk home, and open up your chocolate wrappers to check out the cards inside. Here's yours:

 

 

 

 

 

For a chocolate bar card, the design isn't too bad!  

 

As for your friends, here's what they received:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between the three of you, that's already a complete set! You joke about how these Mario Bun cards are doing much better with collation than some actual hockey card brands out there. Then before you go your separate ways, you get down to business. 

 

All three of you want the complete set, so you make a verbal agreement to buy more Mario Buns over the next few weeks and make the trades necessary to achieve the goal.

 

It might not be the healthiest of plans, but if the collation is pretty good, you figure you shouldn't have to eat too many of them. Besides, you're all young, and you all play roller hockey at the local park pretty much every day after school, even on these cold winter days. You'll burn off that chocolate and caramel easily.

 

 

As for the Mario Bun, it was produced and sold in 1993 by the D.L. Clark company.

 

 

 

Yep, that's the same brand known for the Clark Bar and Zagnut Bar. (And you know what? They also made the Reggie! Bar in the late-70s.)

 

The company was founded in Pittsburgh, way back in 1886. In 1999 they were purchased by the Necco Company. Then, when Necco went bankrupt in 2018, the Clark brand was acquired by the Boyer Candy Company, who seem to enjoy producing Clark Bars and a few other vintage treats.

How about you readers? 

 

Do you remember the Mario Bun or any other Clark products? 

 

Did you have a local stationery store or drug store that boasted racks and racks of candy when you were a kid?

 

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

A Smorgasbord! 1993 Yoo-Hoo Baseball Legends

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

It's November in the early 1990s, and it's been quite a weekend. You're excited about the Thanksgiving break that's coming up, and after school on Friday you headed to dad and stepmom's house to stay over. On Saturday morning you watched some cartoons and then went out to the driving range to whack some golf balls, which is always fun. Now it's Saturday night, and dad and stepmom are going out to dinner. By themselves. 

Oh, to be a kid with a few hours of freedom, a TV, a Nintendo Entertainment System, and some food in the fridge.

The night starts out well. You take your plate of food out of the refrigerator, set it on the counter, and then go back in for the real star: 

Stepmom bought a six-pack of Yoo-Hoo! 

 

Glass bottles, twist-top, and everything. Oh, yes.

You tear one bottle out of the cardboard wrap and bring it with your dinner into the living room, where you power on the television encased in its big, furniture-like wooden cabinet, and eat your dinner to the sights and sounds of American Gladiators.

It's not long before you clean your plate, finish the Yoo-Hoo, and bring your dishes to the sink. Life is good, and you decide to go back into the fridge for a second Yoo-Hoo. I mean, The Eliminator challenge is coming up. If there's any time to drink a second bottle, it's while watching a Gladiator fire tennis balls out of an air cannon at contestants who are scampering through an obstacle course below.

Well, the battle ends in spectacular finish, as usual, and now you flip through the channels with gusto. (They've got cable TV here.) Soon you're on your third bottle of Yoo-Hoo.

Meanwhile, dad and stepmom have enjoyed a nice dinner, and after a little more conversation and relaxation, they start heading home. It's pretty late in the evening when they arrive and open the kitchen door. It's fairly dark inside, but they notice that the television in the living room is still on, so they walk through the kitchen to have a closer look. 

And there you are.

On the floor. Face down. Sleeping hard. Three empty Yoo-Hoo bottles lined up next to each other on the fireplace hearth.

"You know it's rough when you've had a three-Yoo-Hoo night." stepmom exclaims.

Dad laughs under his breath.

The next thing you remember is waking up Sunday morning in your bed upstairs. You're not sure how you got there, but when you get out of bed and groggily walk downstairs, both dad and stepmom are sitting at the kitchen table, eagerly awaiting your arrival with smirks on their faces. You tell yourself that you'll just have to take the ribbing that's about to come.

What makes that ribbing a little easier is that the six-pack of Yoo-Hoo has revealed a bonus.

A set of baseball cards!

After the jokes subside, dad points out a special offer printed on the side of the six-pack: You can send away for a cello pack containing the entire 20-card set. (You must have missed it during your wild night.)

And if that Willie McCovey card up there is any indication, the set's going to be a good one. What an image. The smile. The sunshine. Blue sky. Bat and glove. Green grass. Stirrup socks. The pose. It's just all-around great. Doesn't matter that the Giants logos have been airbrushed out.

Here's the card back:

I like the alternating columns of red and blue text. It really helps you track the particular stat you want to track. (Actually, why haven't more trading cards utilized this design?) As for the rest of it, I think the yellow border works—not only because it's pretty thin and unobtrusive, but also because it's Yoo-Hoo's main color.

So let's get to the company now.

The Yoo-Hoo brand has been around since 1928, when a man named Natale Oivieri, a bottler of orange and raspberry sodas, thought to add some chocolate syrup to milk and bottle that, too. Over the next two or three decades, the drink became quite popular, and more bottling plants were opened.

Then, in 1960, the drink made its first baseball connection, when Yogi Berra became an official spokesman. Berra would appear in many of Yoo-Hoo's television commercials and print advertisements, along with other Yankee superstars like Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford. (There's a 5-card set of Yoo-Hoo Yankees cards from this era—distributed in the New York area with the purchase of a six-pack.)

I think the recipe for Yoo-Hoo at that time was a little more palatable. The formula that I remember from the 1990s consisted of water, corn syrup, whey, cocoa, and dry milk powder, which doesn't sound that appealing now. But back then, it sure was a treat. 

 

Here's a commercial some of you might remember:

Good times there, friends. Good times.

 

Postscript

So far, this smorgasbord series has consisted of fictional stories featuring a young, card-collecting protagonist who is excited about various food-issue cards of the 1970s and '80s. The "three-Yoo-Hoo night" account that appears above, however, is different. 

It actually happened. 

To me. 

In my card-collecting youth.

It's the first time in the series that one of the featured food-issue cards has brought back such a specific memory from those days. The only fictional part of the story involves the set of trading cards. My actual experience probably occurred two or three years before the 1993 Yoo-Hoo set appeared.

In other words, after my wild night, I took the good-natured poking from my dad and stepmom without the bonus of the baseball cards. I'm happy to have that McCovey card in my collection now, though.

So how about you readers and collectors? 

Have you ever had a Yoo-Hoo? Think you might add one or two of the 1993 Yoo-Hoo cards to your collection?

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading!

A Smorgasbord! 1988 Domino's Detroit Tigers

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

 

 

Wednesday, October 19, 1988. It's been getting a little cold here in Detroit.

But it's also World Series time. Game 4. And as a young Little-Leaguer, you're deeply immersed.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are up 2 games to 1 against the Oakland A's. You're still thinking about Kirk Gibson's amazing home run from a few nights ago.

Dad has been letting you stay up late to watch the games, which is amazing enough. But tonight, there's an added bonus.

Domino's pizza!

Oh man, pizza and a World Series game. Good thing you've finished your homework.

But before the scent of fresh, hot pizza becomes completely intoxicating, you remember something. It was a baseball card trade you made with one of your friends this past year. Quickly, you run upstairs to your bedroom, open up some shoeboxes full of cards, and find the card you were wondering about. And it turns out you wondered right.

You have a Domino's Pizza card in your collection!

Your buddy brought back a whole set of these cards from a game he went to at Tiger Stadium a couple of months ago. The players are before your time, but they won the championship in 1968, and you respect that. When your friend offered one of the cards from the set in a trade, you chose Jim Northrup—mostly for the action on the front. You get a great shot of the metal wire fence and built-in lightbulb scoreboard, and it looks like Mr. Northrup is about to make a highlight-reel catch with all the fans watching along.

You flip the card over to remind yourself what it looks like.

There's lots of great information about your hometown team, and it looks like Mr. Northrup had a more than decent World Series performance!

But now you've got to get back to the pizza, while there's still some pepperoni left.

Domino's was founded in 1960, when brothers Tom and Jim Monaghan bought a Michigan restaurant called DomiNick's from the original owner, Dominick DeVarti. The brothers added a couple of pizzerias over the next few years to make it a total of three locations, and that's what the dots on the logo represent.

As Domino's grew throughout the 1960s and '70s, their locations became known for local pizza delivery—something that wasn't all that common at the time. The business plan was an outrageous success, in part because the company added locations near college campuses filled with hungry students.

Domino's remained popular throughout the 1980s, when this Tigers card set was released. Around this time they also introduced a wacky mascot some of you might remember:

Avoid the Noid.

Then, at some point in the 1990s or early 2000s, Domino's pizza lost some of their luster. The quality of ingredients declined, and sales dropped. I do remember this time, when it felt like Domino's was a last resort for your pizza needs. 

Thankfully, in more modern times the company has reworked its menu, and it seems like Domino's is no longer the "cardboard with jarred tomato sauce on it" that it was during those down years. I haven't had Domino's in more than 20 years, so I couldn't tell you.

How about you readers? 

What are your thoughts on Domino's pizza? Any good childhood or teenage memories? Have you ordered from Domino's recently?

Do you have any cards from the Commemorative Detroit Tigers baseball card set in your collection?

Share your thoughts in the comment section, and thanks for reading.

A Smorgasbord! 1988 Chef Boyardee

From the 1970s through the 1990s, it seemed like you could find your favorite baseball stars on food product packaging everywhere you looked: supermarkets, corner stores, restaurants, and beyond. This past year, in an effort to capture a little more nostalgia, I set a goal to expand my own collection of these "food-issue" cards. In this series I'll show the specific examples I've acquired, and share a little bit of history about the food or beverage sponsor as well. 

Previous entries can be found here.

 

 

 

School is back in session. 

The first few weeks are always overwhelming—not only for you, but also for mom and dad. They do a lot to get you ready every morning. Then once you're out the door, they work even harder. And sometimes they work late. It's a marvel that mom gets a nice, home-cooked meal together as much as she does.

But on the occasions when she can't, you do get something out of it.

Chef Boyardee!

You know it's not the best for you, but it tastes good, and you consider it a silver lining to the hectic nature of the week. And tonight, the cloud is lined with even more silver: There's a baseball card offer on the back of the can!

You read the details more closely.

If you send in 10 proofs of purchase from Chef Boyardee products, plus $1.50 for postage, the company will send you a sheet of 24 baseball cards featuring all the stars of the day. 

 

You stop and think. The $1.50 for shipping isn't a big deal. You can earn that. But then you need 10 proofs of purchase from Chef Boyardee products. Ten?? Wow.

You don't want to wish busy days on mom and dad, but man, do you ever want those cards. So for the next month you pick your spots to ask for a can of Boyardee wisely, mention the card set, and exhibit as much patience as you can. You even convince a couple of your friends to clip proofs of purchase from the Boyardee cans at their homes and bring them to you, in exchange for a couple of baseball cards from your collection.

And finally, you have enough proofs of purchase and the $1.50. Everything goes into an envelope, and you wait.

Fast-forward to mid-November, and your package arrives. You tear it open excitedly, toss aside some filler paper, pull the panel of cards out, and . . .

. . . you're less than thrilled. 

All you see are the heads and shoulders of each player (sometimes just the heads!), and the logos have been removed from their caps. On top of that, some of the photographs are a little dark. Others are grainy. Maybe you notice all of those negatives a little bit more because the 24 players are right next to each other on one big panel. So you make a decision.

You're going to separate the cards, using the perforations provided.

After you carefully do that, you stack the cards up and flip through them. Still not great, but it does feel a little better somehow. You decide to keep a few, like the Mattingly and the Ozzie Smith. But some of the others? You wouldn't mind trading them. And you already might have a taker at school.

Your trade negotiation the next day is fruitful. Here are the two cards you'll be offering up:

It's trade time. You take a look at the stats on the back once more before handing the cards over.

Not bad. The text feels a little smaller and more sparse than the standard Topps card, though. It's just one more reason why you don't mind trading them away. That's especially true because you pick up these sweet cards in return:

 

Yeah, they've still got the airbrushed caps, but at least you see more of the uniforms, and the photo quality is better. On top of that, the card design is more fun, front and back. 

 

 

  

Besides, how many of your classmates have True Value cards in their collection? Feels like a fair trade.

You put them safely in the small zippered pocket of your backpack, and head home. The weather is pretty mild, and you haven't been on the baseball diamond lately. Your schedule for the rest of the day?

• Get home
• Put Madlock and Gibson in shoe box
• Do homework 
• Show homework to mom
• Ask if you can go to the baseball field before dinner
• If yes, get changed and go
• Be back before sundown

You only have about an hour before it gets dark, but it'll be worth it.

As for the Chef Boyardee brand, did you know that the guy on the logo was an actual chef? 

 

 

The company was founded in 1928 by an Italian immigrant named Hector Boiardi and his brothers. (The Americanized "Boyardee" was created to make pronunciation a little easier for customers.) 

 

Mr. Boiardi owned a restaurant back then, and he'd been jarring his delicious spaghetti sauce in re-used milk bottles. Eventually, demand for his food inspired him to create a packaged meal kit. Along with the sauce, it included dried spaghetti and Parmesan cheese. The kit helped countless families sustain themselves during the Great Depression. As if that weren't enough, the company supplied rations to the US Army during World War II.

 

I only knew the Boyardee brand for its fun ravioli and meatball/pasta products from the 1980s. But now I certainly have a greater appreciation for the man and the company.

 

How about you readers? Ever have a Chef Boyardee product when you were a kid? 

 

Do you have any of the baseball cards from this set in your collection?

 

Share in the comment section, and thanks for reading.