I pride myself on being an old-school, Topps vintage collector. I started buying Topps wax packs in 1969 at age seven and was loyal to the company’s products through 1980, when I headed off to college. I skipped the 1981 Donruss and Fleer launches, never jumped on board the high-quality 1989 Upper Deck set and certainly missed the train on the vast array of products that have entered the hobby’s marketplace since. Sure, I have a few non-Topps exceptions in my collection (I’m smitten with the 1970 Kellogg’s 3-D baseball card set, 1975-1977 Hostess cards and the 1978 WIFFLE SPORTS SPECTACULAR disc set – I played a lot of wiffle ball).
I made another vintage departure recently when I snagged a 1964 Wheaties All-Star Baseball Stamp Album on eBay. I told myself it was okay, because I noticed that a great majority of those yesteryear stamps had images that also appeared on Topps baseball cards. Thumbing through the booklet, I’m happy I picked it up.
IT’S NOT JUST FOR BREAKFAST ANYMORE
Wheaties cereal, created in 1921 by the Washburn Crosby Company, later known as General Mills, has almost always had a connection to athletics. Their iconic “Breakfast of Champions” slogan is synonymous with sports. Their “You Better Eat Your Wheaties” proclamation pretty much guilts you into devouring bowlfuls to ensure your fittest self.
It’s only fitting that General Mills would serve up a baseball promotion in 1964 by offering a 48-page All-Star Stamp Album complete with 50 MLB player stamps for the bargain price of 50 cents and a box top. Here’s the offer on the box backside minus the order blank certificate which apparently was completed and mailed away to General Mills’ Minneapolis digs 60 years ago.
I found an official order form brochure on the internet that brims with album selling points.
Once the modest monetary and packaging requirements were met, the consumer food company shipped off the paperback prize to the lucky collector.
Lightly stapled inside the album were six separate sheets totaling 50 blank-backed, unnumbered, 2 7/16” x 2 ¾” adhesive stamps.
It’s generally believed the players featured in the set all participated in the 1963 All-Star game in Cleveland, nicely recapped here with an in-depth Ohio spin by resident writer Bill Lucey. Here are the starters and reserve players for the two 1963 All-Star squads.
In reality, there were four players – Whitey Ford, Bob Friend, Jim Gilliam and Ron Perranoski, who were honored with Wheaties Stamps but were not All-Stars the previous year. In fact, Perranoski was never selected to an All-Star game in his career. In addition, the following nine players made the team yet General Mills didn’t produce stamps of them:
What’s interesting is the high percentage of Wheaties Stamp images shared with Topps-issued cards and inserts. Forty-four of the 50 stamps (88%) have a snapshot that was featured on a Topps, O-Pee-Chee Canadian, Topps Venezuelan or Bazooka product. That far exceeds many other prominent food issue baseball sets, such as Post, JELL-O, Kellogg’s, Milk Duds and Hostess, which all showcased loads of pictures not found in the Topps final lineup. It seems highly likely that Topps provided General Mills with file transparencies that were used to produce the album adhesives in return for some form of compensation.
DIRECT HITS
Let’s take a look at some Wheaties Stamps and their matching Topps counterparts, starting with Hank Aaron. You can see his 1964 Wheaties photo is the same one featured on his 1963 Topps card. Wheaties eaters got to see a portion of Hank’s leather glove, which is shielded behind the Topps orange inset circle.
Aaron had a long string of Topps baseball cards spread over his 23 playing years, and the gum company almost always referred to him as Hank. One major exception was his 1954 rookie card where Sy Berger & Co. listed the newcomer as Henry.
Wheaties relied on a facsimile autograph on the front to identify the player, so Hammer was known as Henry on the standalone stamp, but when glued into the album, General Mills opted for Hank for his printed bio highlights.
Another all-time great, Roberto Clemente, had his 1964 Wheaties Stamp pic pop up on different Topps offerings. It’s commendable to see Wheaties opted for Roberto instead of Bob, which Topps improperly chose to use.
The 1964 Wheaties Elston Howard stamp reveals what his 1963 Topps card didn’t – the pinstriped catcher squatting in a near-empty Yankee Stadium, with a mysterious suited man surveying the sitch. Let’s hope Elston tucked those fingers behind his glove before receiving the ball.
Bill White’s 1964 Wheaties image tops all in terms of number of times it surfaced on Topps products.
Meanwhile, Bobby Richardson captures the blue ribbon for oldest card photograph by having his 1959 Topps portrait appear five years later on the 1964 Wheaties Stamp.
Willie McCovey’s ’64 Wheaties Stamp photo was used for his 1961 Topps Baseball Stamp and 1962 base card. Topps must have found the lumber on the left shoulder a distraction on his 1961 Stamp, hence it got airbrushed out.
Thanks to the 1964 Wheaties Stamp, collectors get to see the customary ballpark background behind Carl Yastrzemski that never appeared on the four Topps creations that highlighted the same head shot. Yaz’ flowing facsimile signature not only broke through the colorful Wheaties snapshot, but almost spilled beyond the blank square border perforations.
NEAR MISSES
I mentioned earlier that there were six Wheaties images that didn’t exactly sync up with a Topps companion. It’s a sure bet that Topps provided unissued file transparencies to General Mills from particular camera sessions. Let’s review them.
LUIS APARICIO, JIM BOUTON & JIM GILLIAM
The closest Topps matches for Luis Aparicio, Jim Bouton and Jim Gilliam to their respective Wheaties Stamp might be the ones I highlighted below.
Topps expert Dave Hornish provided me images captured from Topps Vault that mirror the 1964 Wheaties Stamps for each of these players, smoking gun proof that the slides belonged to Topps and were provided to General Mills.
RON PERRANOSKI
Ron Perranoski’s 1964 Wheaties photo is almost identical to his 1962 Topps card, but upon inspection, you can see it was snapped moments apart. In the 1964 version, Perranoski’s red jersey number pops into view, as does a bent over player in the background. In the 1962 shot, the jersey number is tucked away and that hunched athlete is almost completely obscured while a different ballplayer enters the scene, stage right.
RAY CULP
Gotta love the classic billboards gracing the wall in Ray Culp’s 1964 Wheaties Stamp. Just as entertaining are the four floating heads (one of which is Culp) on 1963 Topps Rookie Stars card #29. I type 1963 with caution because Topps created two versions of that card, one with the “head”line 1962 Rookie Stars and another with the corrected 1963 Rookie Stars “header”. Anyway, Culp’s disembodied Topps head is looking quite similar to the one on his full-body Wheaties Stamp. But the image that seems to confirm General Mills used a Topps file photo taken during the same on-field shoot is the 1964 Bazooka Ray Culp Stamp picture, this time capless (is he or isn’t he wearing an undershirt?). In the background are those same advertising signs seen on the Wheaties Stamp.
ALBIE PEARSON
Speaking of ballpark billboards, they provide big clues that help pinpoint the site and date of a Wheaties photo of Los Angeles Angels outfielder Albie Pearson. There is no Topps shared photo for his 1964 Wheaties Stamp. The closest resemblance can be found on his 1966 card, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to connect the two pictures.
So, the next best and fun thing to do is determine where and when the stamp photo took place. The billboards and backdrop in the top third of Pearson’s stamp help crack the code.
Check out this marvelous black & white panoramic shot of Yankee Stadium by famed sports photographer Neil Leifers taken during Game 1 of the 1961 World Series between the visiting Cincinnati Reds and the New York Yankees.
If you zoom into the outfield area, you see a series of advertisements and other objects that also appear in Pearson’s stamp landscape.
When also comparing a colorized outfield scene lifted from a film shot inside Yankee Stadium in June of 1961, against the Pearson Wheaties backdrop, the grandstands, billboards and water tower match.
This confirms Albie, who was selected in December of 1960 by the Angels in the expansion draft, was photographed sometime in April, June or August 1961 when the Angels visited the Yankees. Given that the Angels players are wearing long sleeves, it most likely occurred on Thursday, April 20th (the lone scheduled April date) since the game time temperature was 56 degrees. The match-ups in June and August saw temperatures at 78 degrees and 82-90 degrees, respectively.
It’s doubtful the 1964 stamp photo was taken in 1962 because the ads (see next photo) were different that year and would not have aligned with the 1961 snapshot.
The odds of Pearson’s 1964 stamp photo being taken in 1963 or as late as 1964 are even more remote because it would be an extreme longshot that the advertisers’ creative placards would repeat the 1961 messages and display in the same sequential order.
BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
Finally, back to the hard-luck All-Stars who were either voted or selected to the 1963 team yet didn’t have a 1964 Wheaties Stamp. I did them a solid by creating a fake sheet of stamps using, of course, Topps baseball card depictions.
I’ve compiled all the Topps images shared with the fifty 1964 Wheaties photos into one document. If you’d like to take a looksee, contact me at dgcarlson5@gmail.com and I’ll email them to you.
Interested in picking up some 1964 Wheaties stamps? See them on eBay here.
If you enjoyed this breakfast treat, feel free to peruse my other articles.
