A Simpler Time

The WBC has consumed basically all of my baseball watching for the last week. While the games have been, at best, baseball drama at its finest, and at worst, largely entertaining, the announcers don't really find time to "shoot the poop" (if you will) during the broadcasts. With the subsequent dearth of tidbits to report, I stumbled upon this image courtesy of Let's Go Mets and felt a tangent coming on:

Some might say advertising has come a long way since the 1950's, but I tend to disagree. There was a straightforwardness about it all; it almost bordered on blunt.

Hey you. Hank Aaron says, "Buy this." So do it. Did you not hear him? Buy it.

In a time when ballplayers had to supplement their on-field income to make an adequate living, it didn't matter what the product was as long as they were making a couple extra bucks. Do you think Duke Snider was really passionate about wearing his Brookfield suit? I'm not calling him out, I just have my doubts. I will, on the other hand, guarantee that Babe Ruth did not eat his Wheaties.

The message (or lack thereof) only represented half the wondrous simplicity of the era. More often than not, the advertisers themselves showed little to no effort to integrate the shiller with the product. "Jello. Here's a picture of Mickey Mantle. You like him right? Buy Jello." Another opportunity was simply letting the marketing department go to town with an artist's rendering of the ballplayer holding their product. Johnny Baseball put his name on the dotted line, never worried about it again, and collected a nice little paycheck. Not a bad day's work.

All idiosyncrasies of baseball marketing of the time aside, the images are timeless and emit pure nostalgia. I can only wish I was around during the dog days of 1952. I'd pick up a fresh issue of Sport magazine to read "Durocher's Dugout Secrets" and turn the page to find Allie Reynolds "telling" me to chew some Beech-Nut gum.

Anyone got a stick?

A few old school ads to peruse...