Baseball cards have long been associated with bubble gum. Cards were first included in packs of cigarettes but it soon became apparent that the men who bought the product weren't nearly as interested in the cards as were the kids who were too young to purchase them. In the 1930s, Fleer (the creator of Dubble Bubble gum) and the Goudey Gum Company competed with one another by including baseball cards with their gum. When Topps debuted in 1951 they included taffy with their cards but the following year, they switched to gum which was included in their packs until 1991. When I was a kid, I had a wad as large as a ping pong ball on my bedpost because that's where Lonnie Donegan suggested putting it, and yeah, it lost its flavor overnight but that didn't stop me from putting it back into my mouth and working it back into bubble blowing shape. What would you expect from a kid whose dentist gave me a Tootsie Pop after each visit? All of us with vintage cards have got at least one with a gum stain on it. For an oddball post today, here are nine cards from my collection featuring players blowing bubbles with their gum.
1976 Topps #564 Kurt Bevacqua/Bubble Gum Champ (The Brewers' Kurt Bevacqua won the first Joe Garagiola Bubble Gum Blowing Championship in 1975. Each team had a representative in the contest and Kurt beat out all of them including future Hall of Famers Bert Blyleven, George Brett, Johnny Bench and Gary Carter.)
1982 Fleer #196 Brad Mills (Brad had only appeared in 38 games coming into the 1982 season so it's safe to say he had plenty of time riding the pine to practice his bubble blowing skills.)
1992 O-Pee-Chee Premier #146 Will Clark (Sweet-swinging Will Clark appears on this O-Pee-Chee card. Did you know that O-Pee-chee was a Canadian confectionery company that was founded in 1911 as a manufacturer of chewing gum?)
1995 Pinnacle #128 Ken Griffey Jr. (I'm not entirely convinced this isn't a balloon Griffey is exhaling into here. If it's gum, it's impressive.)
1996 Pinnacle #131 Hideo Nomo (Here's Hideo making an effort.)
1996 Pinnacle Christie Brinkley Collection #5 Chipper Jones (Here's another card from Pinnacle's insert set featuring the photography of Christie Brinkley. The back of this card features a selfie of Christie and Chipper both blowing bubbles so there are actually three bubbles being blown on this card.)
1999 Stadium Club #112 Chan Ho Park (Chan Ho Park with a wide-eyed expression at the result of his effort.)
2000 Ultra #41 Billy Wagner (Here's Billy kicking back in the bullpen probably prior to one of his 422 saves.)
2016 Topps Opening Day Bubble Trouble #BT5 Albert Pujols (King Albert featured on a Topps insert set entirely devoted to bubble gum bubbles.)
Today I am going to mix it up just a bit and feature nine cards from my collection featuring nine current players that I am considering starting collections of in hopes that they wind up on a Hall of Fame path. There is so much young talent today that it is difficult to determine who exactly is the "cream of the crop" and will rise above all others. Players I've considered but left off this list are Pete Alonso, Nolan Arenado, Cody Bellinger, Luis Robert and Mike Yastrzemski although I do save their cards if I happen to come across any. A few of these scans are a bit cruddy as I used a different scanner for those.
2017 Topps Gypsy Queen Purple #121 Jacob deGrom (The only pitcher I am considering. It's difficult for me to go all in on a pitcher. The last one I decided to collect was Scherzer who joins Kershaw and Verlander as the only current pitchers I am collecting. I have 77 of his cards.)
2018 Bowman #49 Shohei Ohtani RC (I guess Ohtani would be considered a pitcher too and I've already jumped in and started my collection of Shohei. Currently 85 cards.)
2018 Topps Fire #109 Ronald Acuna Jr. RC (Acuna is the only other player that I've already begun a collection of and he hurt himself immediately after. I will continue to collect him for now as the talent is there. 79 cards.)
2018 Topps Fire Gold #181 Juan Soto (I'm not completely sold on Soto yet. Maybe if he puts up some gaudy numbers in the near future. 25 cards.)
2018 Topps Gallery Impressionists #I22 Rafael Devers (I feel like I need to collect a Red Sox player and Devers kinda excites me. He's still a kid but seems to be working on his defense and I love to watch him hit. 74 cards.)
2019 Certified Green #35 Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (I collect his dad and the season Jr. is having this year is swaying me into thinking I should get my collection going on him, especially if he can consistently put up these type of numbers. 38 cards.)
2019 Finest Green Refractors #68 Xander Bogaerts (Another Sox player that I"m considering. I first met him in August of 2009 when he was playing in the Senior League World Series which we hosted in Bangor, Maine. He was on the Aruba team and was about 16 years old at the time. I was working for ESPN doing slow motion replay in the back of their production truck. 115 cards.)
2019 Topps Heritage #517 Fernando Tatis Jr. RC (Tatis may be Mike Trout's successor as the game's most exciting player and I'm almost ready to jump all in on him but I'm not sure he can stay healthy for the long run. We'll see. 34 cards.)
2020 Panini Prizm Prizms Red White and Blue #71 Bo Bichette (There seem to be several sons of ballplayers on this list and Bo is another one. I'm saving his cards for now but have not "officially" started a Bo collection yet. 33 cards.)