Texan wins glove nearly 60 years after baseball card contest

GRAND PRAIRIE, Texas — A candy company has stuck to its word and sent a Texas man a Louisville Slugger glove nearly 60 years after a bubble gum and baseball card contest began.

Darwin Day, 70, of Grand Prairie was cleaning his house and found a complete collection of Topps baseball cards from 1957-58, The Dallas Morning News (http://bit.ly/2cN1ARv ) reports. The cards were included with Bazooka bubble gum purchases.

Day said he was prompted to clean out his own house after having been tasked with cleaning out the Virginia home that belonged to his brother, who died of cancer earlier this year.

Day, who leads tours of Globe Life Park, has always been a baseball fan and at his brother’s celebration of life, he led those in attendance in singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

“It was such a consuming job that it made me think that maybe I ought to clean out my own house,” Day said. “So I did that, and I came across these cards.”

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One of the cards touted a contest: “Win These Swell Prizes in the 4th Bazooka Baseball Contest.” To enter, the card owner had to correctly fill out scores from some professional baseball games and remit the card.

Day said no deadline was listed on the card, so he sent the completed entry card to an executive at Bazooka Candy Brands, a division of the New York-based Topps Company.

“It did pique my interest, this kind of mysterious letter,” said Tony Jacobs, global general manager of Topps Confectionery Brands. Jacobs who joined Topps three years ago and manages the candy wing of the company, which includes Bazooka Bubble Gum.

Day was in bed he received when he received a call from Rogers & Cowan, a marketing firm that represents Topps. They told Day Topps was going to honour the contest.

His prize package also included T-shirts, a pillow with a Bazooka Joe comic strip printed on it and lots of gum.

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Information from: The Dallas Morning News, http://www.dallasnews.com

The Associated Press