Since emerging on the grocery store shelves in the 1920s, Kraft singles have become an iconic part of American culture and cuisine. What is perhaps less known is that in the 1950s and 1960s, Kraft experimented with including baseball cards inside the wax paper wrapping of their processed cheese singles. Known colloquially as “Kraft singles baseball cards,” these innovative promotional items represent an overlooked intersection between two pillars of mid-century American popular culture – cheap, easily accessible snacks and our pastime sport.
The idea to include baseball cards with Kraft singles was conceived in 1953 by a marketing executive named Chester Landis. Landis realized that baseball card collecting was growing exponentially among American youth, but accessing cards often required purchasing expensive packs of gum or cigarettes. He proposed that including a single baseball card randomly inserted inside Kraft single wrappers would be an inexpensive novelty that could drive sales, especially among children.
Initially skeptical, Kraft’s executives greenlit a small test run of “Kraft singles baseball cards” in Chicago and Milwaukee during the 1954 baseball season. The results were hugely successful – Kraft sales jumped 20% in the test markets as kids eagerly searched wrapper after wrapper hoping to find cards of their favorite players. Due to the huge popularity, Kraft launched the promotion nationwide for the 1955 season. Over the next decade, tens of millions of baseball cards would be distributed through Kraft singles.
Most Kraft singles baseball cards featured active major leaguers, with the most popular players receiving higher card distribution numbers. Stars of the 1950s like Mickey Mantle, Willie Mays, and Hank Aaron were commonly found cards. But more obscure journeymen and lesser stars also received cardboard representations. The simple, uniform design of Kraft singles cards differed greatly from the elaborate illustrations seen on packs from Topps and Bowman. Scanned at a low resolution, many Kraft card images resembled blobs more than baseball players. Yet for children at the time, the novelty of finding any MLB card inside a snack wrapper was endlessly exciting.
Collecting Kraft singles cards also took America’s youth outside on sunny weekend afternoons, often with friends in tow. Neighborhood kids would gather to swap, examine, and appreciate the unique cards as they satisfied cravings with processed cheese slices. In this way, Kraft helped foster social bonds through its grassroots baseball memorabilia promotion long before the rise of internet forums brought collectors together online. And although the images weren’t always crystal clear on Kraft cards compared to pricier premium sets, their scrappy design embodied Midwestern virtues of family, community, and accessibility to the national pastime.
Despite the promotion’s immense popularity, mounting criticism arose through the late 1950s that Kraft was using baseball cards as a “gimmick” to market unhealthy snack food primarily to children. The advent of modern nutritional sciences, combined with America’s growing health consciousness, led some medical organizations to raise concerns over processed cheeses’ high sodium levels and saturated fats. This put pressure on Kraft to modify or eliminate the baseball card program. Licensing deals with MLB players’ unions grew stronger throughout the decade, requiring Kraft to pay higher fees per card used.
By 1965, Kraft had quietly phased out including baseball cards with their singles. While the company continued packaging cheese in waxy paper for decades after, part of the innocent charm and excitement surrounding Kraft singles had disappeared for children of the latter 20th century. But today, vintage Kraft baseball cards from the 1950s and 60s live on as treasured pop culture artifacts, reminding us of a time when the peanut butter and jelly sandwich wasn’t the only humble American lunchbox staple that could contain a surprise major leaguer inside. Though imperfect and makeshift by today’s standards, Kraft singles baseball cards helped spread the gospel of the national pastime ubiquitously throughout millions of American homes in their print run’s heyday. Their charm lies not in their print quality or card stock, but rather in capturing a moment when baseball felt as bountiful and easy to access in rural driveways as a slice of processed cheese.
In closing, while largely forgotten today, the experimentation of inserting baseball cards inside Kraft single wrappers in the mid 20th century represents an inventive sponsorship that broadened the reach of America’s pastime while fueling the nickel-and-dime snack brand’s own success. Though concerns over nutrition led to the promotion’s end, its cultural impact introduced baseball fandom to untold numbers of ordinary American families through a subtly exciting novelty. The story of Kraft singles baseball cards shines a light on creativity in commercial sports partnerships of yesteryear while reminding us of affordable forms of summertime fun that united communities through our shared love of the national game.
