Hostess baseball cards

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I read with some sadness that Hostess was filing for bankruptcy -- though the company will still be around for a while, it appears.

Still, here is part one of an appreciation for some Hostess Mets baseball cards that were as elusive as they are plain, and recalling the great investigative work by batmags a few years back.

http://www.metsguyinmichigan.blogspot.com/2012/01/twinkies-were-fine-but-cards-were.html

[Edgy MD]

If'n I recall correctly, those cards (at least not in all years) weren't even perforated, which meant you had to do your own creative cut job to liberate the cards from the mooring of the box.

And if'n you were as afraid of your mom as I was of mine, you didn't get a crack with the scissors until the box was empty. But there was no guarantee that the box would empty while I was about, and end up in the trash. What did my older brothers and sisters care about baseball cards. They were enemies of the people.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Found these images on a site of "cards that never were":



http://whitesoxcards.blogspot.com/2010/11/cards-that-never-were-by-tim-d.html

[Benjamin Grimm]

That Expos card on the left is so wrong... the 1972 series wouldn't have used an action shot on that card.

[batmagadanleadoff]

Benjamin Grimm wrote: That Expos card on the left is so wrong... the 1972 series wouldn't have used an action shot on that card.

Yes. And it would've been almost as unlikely for Topps to use an action shot of Staub shot in Jarry Park.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Can you guys remind me again of what Staub's issue was with Topps?

I remember approaching him with a card I had of his at a banquet and his refusing to sign it.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Love the traded card, though! The Mets cap, as always, is a beautiful thing.

[batmagadanleadoff]

That Expos card on the left is so wrong... the 1972 series wouldn't have used an action shot on that card. Yes. And it would've been almost as unlikely for Topps to use an action shot of Staub shot in Jarry Park.

All but 9 1/2 of the '72 Topps Expos cards were shot in spring training. The 9 1/2 that weren't were shot in a major league stadium, emphasis on "a", which rhymes with .... :

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

The 1972 set is just spectacular.

[Edgy MD]

I love the actorly pose of Denny LeMaster, pondering great and crucial questions as he looks to the horizon.

I wonder what happened at the moment they decided not to put positions on the cards. I get the niotion that they were up all night and tried to 15 different ways to get the position information on there, and then they finally said, "You know what, let's just leave it off. These simply look too FANTASTIC to ruin by breaking everything up with the positions."

Three weeks later, the first cards are rolling off the line, and designers get a call from the president of company. The five of them walk in penitentially and trying to avoid eye contact. The senior guy decides to man up on behalf of the rest of them and says, "Look, Chief, if it's about the posit..."

And then he suddenly realizes the president hasn't looked up. He has a sheet of Expos cards in front of him and he's crying. Expos. Finally, he removes his glasses, mats away a tear from each side of his face with his hanky, honks his nose, looks at the row of designers left to right, and cries out: "They're just so BEAUTIFUL!"

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I only wished they would have matched the border colors with the team colors. Seeing the Mets surrounded by blue and orange would have made the set even better.

The problem, I guess, is that there are so many blue teams.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

http://metsguyinmichigan.blogspot.com/2012/01/hostess-baseball-cards-in-1976-fit-in.html

Today, we're looking at the 1976 Hostess set and the magic of the bicentennial.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

http://www.metsguyinmichigan.blogspot.com/2012/01/hostess-cards-and-betrayals-of-1977.html

1977 sucked. And the Hostess cards were just OK.