"Just watching the wheels going around"

When I was a young one, or yougin, I loved the fast food chain Burger Chef and

their Pizza Burgers still make my mouth water-though it has been 43 years or so since I had one, and it is doubtful they were all that good. Love this commercial.

I digress, I remember getting several Burger Chef premiums such as yo-yos,

Frisbees, and most important of all-those logo less round disk baseball cards with players whose hair and moustaches bring up immense amounts of envy.  We have all run across them, each region having versions differentiated slightly by the advertisement on the reverse. I thought I would go through the Sports Collector’s Digest Standard Catalogue of Vintage Baseball Cards (really just the vintage cards separated from the main catalogue-lesson learned) to see what Redbirds are available.

In 1975 Michael Schechter Associates produced a set of promo discs (For example this Catfish Hunter) licensed only by the Major league Players Association to be marketed to local restaurants, fast food restaurants, ice cream parlors, etc.

For 1976 the catalogue indicates there were issues for the following businesses Buckman, Carousel, Crane Potato Chips, Isaly's/Sweet William, Orbaker’s, Safelon, Michael Schechter Ass. (MSA), and Towne Club. With the exception of  the MSA issue all have unique reverses. The checklists were pretty consistent for the Redbirds through out the 1976 issues.  All of the above contained; Lou Brock, Al Hrabosky, Don Kessinger, Bake McBride (Best baseball name ever), Ted Simmons, Reggie Smith, and Mike Tyson.

In 1977, Burger Chef, Dairy Isle, Detroit Caesars, Holiday Inn, Pepsi-Cola, Saga, Michael Schechter Ass. Michael Schechter Ass. Customized, Wendy's, Wiffle Insert, and Zip's issued disc sets. The Burger Chef issue included several Redbirds not included in other sets and was issued as part of a tray. This checklist Redbirds included; Lou Brock, Al Hrabosky, Bake McBride, Ted Simmons, Reggie Smith, Mike Tyson, and Burger Chef included the regular checklist (except for Reggie Smith) John Denny, Pete Falcone, Keith and Hernandez. As with Crane in 1976 Holliday Inn and Pepsi-Cola have their names on the front of the disk as well. The Pepsi-Cola set was issued as punch outs inside a glove and were inserted in 6-packs and resemble bookmarks.

I could only find an issue for Saga in 1978 and none in 1979 or 1980. I am not going to go in to the 80’s discs now so to conclude this posting here is Lou Brock from the 1978 Saga issue.  I hope you enjoyed my trip through memory lane.