If you grew up in the late 1950s, 1960s, 1970s or 1980s, you probably remember the “Christmas Wish Book.” Every toy, every game, every piece of sports-related gear any kid could have ever wanted was inside the inch-thick, full-color, glossy 
catalog that arrived in the fall and sent every kid scurrying for a pen and pencil to make out a gift list for Santa (or mom and dad if someone had spilled the beans).
Sears, JC Penney and Montgomery Ward were three of the biggies, but all you really needed was one good one. Pages were torn out or corners folded to mark your spot. Prices were noted, but hey, it didn’t hurt to dream big, right?
of the best parts about the annual catalogs was seeing the newest editions of electric football that were hitting the market. Now, some huge fans and collectors of the old game have put together a book that will put all of those holiday memories in one place. The Electric Football Wishbook is the first-ever accumulation of pages from those catalogs from 1955-1988 and it includes other sports games you remember asking for, too.
The recently released 80-page book consists of dozens of full-page and full-color catalog images. Sort of a chronicle of the Toy Industry’s “Golden Age,” the book pictures over 140 Electric Football games along with year and catalog identification. The evolution of sports tabletop games can be seen through its pages.
The 8×10 sized Wishbook includes a complete index in the back, so it also doubles as a reference guide for those who collect the games or are looking for one they owned as a kid.
Dozens of baseball, basketball, and table hockey games are also shown, many endorsed by the top athletes of the time.
It’s the third book from sports game aficionados Earl Shores, Roddy Garcia, and Michael Kronenberg. The Wishbook completes an Electric Football trilogy that was five years in the making, and includes The Unforgettable Buzz (2013) and Full Color Electric Football (2015).
The cost is $14.15 and the book can be ordered here.
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