I grew up in small out of the way fishing villages in the 70’s. Because these hamlets were in the sticks, it may as well have been the 50’s. I didn’t catch that Happy Days was a nostalgic show. Seemed pretty current to me. Because of this, I often played with toys that were antiques even then. Nobody knew it at the time. If they did, it mattered little.
Baseball toys were plentiful, but what I really wanted were baseball figures. I really liked toy soldiers and had lots of those. How about some ball players? Yankees if I could get them. So I started to search for them, begging the few shop owners for “baseball guys."
Buried Treasure ice cream was my first step to getting my baseball team together. Any old timers out there remember Buried Treasure? For the unfamiliar, it was a simple concept. Ice cream on a plastic stand which hid a two dimensional figure. They had everything from dragons to cowboys to figure skaters.
More importantly, they had baseball players. The most common figure was a fielder waiting on the play, hands on his knees. Some had bases, some did not. Infield and outfield, got it. There were also pitcher, batter, catcher, and umpire figures available.
It took forever to get a team together as Buried Treasure subscribed to the Forrest Gump-ish “never know what you’re gonna get" business model. You didn’t even know you’d get a baseball player. And then, it was usually a fielder. This was my first experience with “chase" items in collecting. But I got to eat lots of ice cream while looking for them, so no problem. Besides, collecting is fun.
One day, the nice lady I was constantly pestering for “baseball guys" proudly handed me a bag of toy players. I was so excited I ripped the bag open to get at them. They were perfect! Just what I wanted! But why were there only a handful of them? I wanted a whole bagful, like how the toy soldiers came.
Still, I was happy, and took them home to play with. After asking the nice lady to get me some more, please. It was my Mom who revealed to me that my new baseball figures were cake toppers. I blinked. Whatever. I would take them.
Due to a combined effort from my family and the local shop owners to shut me up, baseball toys began to appear. The nice lady would run into the street waving a bag of plastic ball players. My father would return from the town down the road with more baseball guys for my collection. I would deduce much later in life that these bags of players had to have been hanging in the backs of some stores for ten or fifteen years.
I found out more about these toys years and years later. There was precious little information about them. It took a few years for even the Internet to find them. Some were from a company called Lido. Their baseball figures started as cereal box surprises. They later bagged them and sold them in the 60’s like the eponymous plastic soldiers. Another company was Ajax. They had been making toys since World War II.
The best company was Marx, short for the Louis Marx company. They covered everything and made plastic figures for every reason you can think of. Superheroes, soldiers from all points in history and nationality, Cowboys and Indians, police officers, firemen, construction workers, everyday civilians, political and religious personalities and much much more.
They made baseball figurines too. Best of all, they made specific ball players. I got a Yogi Berra! I finally had a straight up Yankee figure! But he would be all I would get. And, well, he was a bronze color. He looked like a statue. No pinstripes.
The other ball players were cool. Bob Avila was there, and a few other classic players, but they were all dressed with incorrect colors. And I couldn’t find any other Yankee players. Only Mr. Berra. And he wasn’t in the right uniform. Sigh.
I was appreciative. Don’t get me wrong. But Reggie Jackson’s poster was on my wall. I wanted more Yankees. But they just didn’t seem to exist. And they wouldn’t for many more years.
Next: Starting Lineup Figures! Woo Hoo! Let the Celebrations Begin!
Chad R. MacDonald
BYB Writer
Facebook: New York Yankees the Home of Champions
My Blog: ChadRants
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