Baseball cards have long been a tradition for young sports fans. While packs of cards could be found in hobby shops and candy stores, in the 1970s cereal makers began including cards as promotions to drive cereal sales. This sparked the boom of kids trading and collecting cards found right in their cereal boxes.
In 1969, Kellogg’s partnered with the Topps chewing gum and baseball card company to include a mint-flavored Bazooka bubble gum packet and a baseball card inside Cocoa Krispies, Fruity Pebbles, and Apple Jacks cereal boxes. This trial run was a success and helped solidify the marriage between baseball cards and breakfast cereal. In the following years, other cereal brands like General Mills and Post jumped on the baseball card bandwagon.
Meanwhile, the popularity of baseball itself was exploding during this time period. New stadiums were being built, television contracts were expanding the fanbase, and young Baby Boomers were coming of age with a passion for the national pastime. This all converged to make collecting baseball cards an enormously popular hobby and activity for children in the 1970s. Finding that shiny card of their favorite player inside a cereal box gave an exciting surprise each morning. The ability to swap duplicates with friends at school further fueled the collecting frenzy.
The peak era for baseball cards in cereal boxes was the late 1970s through the early 1980s. In 1978 alone, Kellogg’s produced a record 750 million baseball cards that were inserted into 16 different cereal varieties. Post Cereal joined the action in 1979 with cards featuring superstar players in sets like “Stars of Baseball.” General Mills added cards to cereals like Chex in 1980. By 1981, the quantity of baseball cards being manufactured and distributed through cereal had skyrocketed to over 2.5 billion cards annually industry wide.
During this golden age, the cards themselves evolved into finer works of artistic sportscards. Full color action shots of players became the norm on glossy cardboard stock. Bursting statistics on the back let fans pore over batting averages and earned run averages. Bios of the players portrayed them as human beings with families and hobbies off the field. Gum company Topps rose to become the dominant pack leader with their basic white border design beloved by collectors even today.
Of course, for the cereal companies it was all about selling more boxes of their products. Initially they aimed the baseball card promotion at boys aged 6 to 12 years old. Research found many parents and even whole families were purchasing multiple boxes just to acquire complete card sets with their breakfast. This led General Mills and others to include additional promotions like mail-away offers for team pennants and mini posters right on the cereal box front. Fans could not wait to open each new box hoping for that rare rookie card or all-star variation to add to their growing collections.
The baseball card in cereal boom would continue strong throughout the 1980s before starting to decline. Over-production led to plummeting resale values of common cards. The sports memorabilia industry was becoming more sophisticated, and kids had many competing interests as new technologies like video games emerged. Though some cards appeared into the early 1990s, the major cereal companies began pulling back after a decade of unprecedented output. Leaf Brands took over production of sports cards forPost Cereal starting in 1989.
But the legacy and memories created by finding baseball cards amidst each morning’s Cheerios or Corn Flakes lives on for a generation of fans. For many, flipping through those worn cardboard pages remains a joyful stroll down memory lane recalling childhood summers spent following baseball on the radio as cards were sorted and swapped under the breakfast table. Collecting from cereal boxes sparked an enduring passion for America’s pastime in millions of young hearts during its golden age. And it all started with a simple yet delightful surprise guaranteed right inside every box.
