Dinner's Ready!

Everyone who collected in the 1980s has food-issue oddballs.  Whether its the Kellogg's cards from the 1970s and early 1980s, the Hostess cards from the late 1970s, the Drake's Big Hitters set, the 7-Eleven Slurpee lids, or any number of other cards that came with pizzas, bread, breakfast cereal, macaroni and cheese, popcorn, or potato chips -- we all have some of those oddballs.

So,once we all aggregate all those meals from a box or snacks from a bag that got us baseball cards, we can sit down to eat.  

But we'll need placemats.  We're refined people, after all.  I'm glad I stopped at Pizza Hut and got this one first.

This one was one of four placemats that Pizza Hut and Pepsi combined to put out during the 1980 season. This particular placemat features Gorman Thomas, Paul Molitor, Jim Slaton, manager George Bamberger, Buck Martinez, and Dick Davis, and they all seem very happy to be drinking Pepsi from a wooden barrel.

I know, though, that this one placemat will not be enough for the crowd here, so let's grab our other placemats:

This is a complete set of 6 of the placemats that the Brewers and McDonald's cooperated on and issued after the end of the 1982 season -- probably during the 1983 season -- to help benefit the Ronald McDonald House in Milwaukee.  As is usual, Ted Simmons looks asleep, Mike Caldwell looks pissed off, Ben Oglivie and Charlie Moore look apologetic, and Rollie Fingers is still smiling.  I only wish that the placemat had included Don Sutton doing his "Suttoning" pose.

Now that we have our placemats down, lets get down to eating.  While we might have placemats from McDonald's, our coupons are from Burger King!

This 8.5" by 11" team calendar features photos for each month from the American League Championship season in 1982.  Back in 1983, it also featured coupons for each month of the year.  I think we used them all up though.

All this talk about food and setting tables has made me thirsty.  Could someone grab a glass for me from the shelf?

In 1982, McDonald's and the Brewers collaborated on a set of four collectors glasses, featuring:

Robin Yount

Ben Oglivie 

Ted Simmons

Paul Molitor

Gorman Thomas

Pete Vuckovich

Rollie Fingers

and Cecil Cooper.

The pairings on the glasses were Fingers/Simmons, Cooper/Thomas, Yount/Oglivie, and Molitor/Vuckovich.  It's the only time I've ever seen Pete Vuckovich look far happier than Paul Molitor anywhere.

These days, fast food restaurants give away "cups" with team logos on them that are thin plastic and get thrown out after one use.  They are so frail and cheap that it makes almost no sense to keep them.  The ones from 1982, though, were made to last.  Yeah, they are glass and might break if you're not careful.  But enough people were care with them to make them fairly plentiful on eBay and other auctions sites.

Still, if you're eating and drinking, you might need some reading material such as, say, the Brewers answer to Pravda:  What's Brewing?

Both of the magazines feature Paul Molitor with his arm around someone -- whether it's Cecil Cooper or his first wife Linda.  As with everything Brewers related, I devoured these magazines as if it really was the gospel according to Paul...

Yeah, bad joke.  Sorry.

Okay, last few items from Wisconsin.  After that joke, I'm sure you've lost your appetite, so let's just see the three Yearbooks:

Before Harvey had his Wallbangers, Bambi -- George Bamberger -- had his Bombers.  I remember getting the yearbook off the local grocery store magazine rack each year -- same as the press guides.  Smart move by ownership to do that -- get as much information out to the public and especially to kids as you can and make the price sort of reasonable.

Two more yearbooks to follow.  They don't have quite as much sentimentality attached.

That 1988 Yearbook looks like it was Upper Deck before Upper Deck was, what with the Molitor Hologram and all.  Obviously the special edition was to celebrate Molitor's 39-game hitting streak in 1987, along with the 13-game win streak to start the season and Ted Higuera's great run of scoreless innings and Juan Nieves's no-hitter.  1987 was a great year. 

1986, to celebrate 1985? Meh.  To be fair, 1985 gave promise -- Ted Higuera and Ernest Riles, in particular -- where 1984 was just loss after loss.  It didn't deserve a "Special Edition" though.

After my three-day walk down memory lane, it's time in my next post to get back to the cards.