Over the hundreds of thousands of years that sports have been around, there have been moments where innovation has shown through. We at the Sportsblahg feel that a couple of them deserve real praise for the high level of creativity, thoughtfulness and desire to go above and beyond for the world of sports. Today’s product of praise is: Big League Chew
Big League chew, the chewing tobacco looking bubble gum was created by former major league pitchers Rob Nelson & Jim Bouton. The story of this wonderful product takes us back to the summer of 1977, where according to Bouton’s website, the genius idea came out:
“During his comeback to baseball with the Atlanta Braves in 1978, Bouton spent part of the 1977 season with the Portland Mavericks, an independent team in the Class A Northwest League. Sitting in the bullpen one night, Bouton watched his much younger teammates chewing tobacco. Fellow pitcher Rob Nelson said it was too bad they didn’t make gum that looked like chewing tobacco.”
And that my friends, is how this great product was founded, in the bullpen in single A baseball. While most products are created in laboratories (usually by accident, see “The Hulk”), this product was founded where it is used most prominently, on the field (well, in the dugout/bullpen).
Not only was this product successful in the bottom line, according to Bouton’s site, the product sold $18 million in the first 12 months of its existence; but surprisingly it wasn’t sold by a tobacco company! The gum was actually sold by Amurol Products, a chewing gum manufacturer in Illinois. It would seem that the better company to have created, sold and distributed the product would have been Philip Morris, given similarities to the often famed, candy cigarettes. As the founder Jim Bouton puts it:
“Big League Chew still sells today, having replaced chewing tobacco at many high schools and colleges.”
It replaced it because chewing tobacco is illegal in high school and college baseball. But chewing its non-tobacco alternative is still fine and dandy (just wait until you get to the big leagues, son). Regardless, just look at how cool the gum looks? How could you not want to stick a wad of that between your lip and teeth? After all, cavities are better than
Big League Chew comes in a number of flavors, but all come in the same packaging and all are shredded for your faux-tobacco chewing pleasure. Flavors include:
-
Outta Here Original - Ground Ball Grape
- Curveball Cotton Candy
- Wild Pitch Watermelon
- Slammin’ (Darryl) Strawberry*
- Swingin’ Sour Apple
- Sour Cherry (No witty quip here)**
As you can see, Big League Chew is one of the staples in the sport of baseball and well worth our first nomination for one of the “Greatest Products In Sports”.
*The Sportsblahg staff added “Darryl” to the title of Slammin’ Strawberry. The addition was for a completely comical purpose and does no way does Darryl Strawberry have any association with this product aside from having the last name Strawberry. Darryl clearly prefers a different product when playing the game of baseball, and it’s also referred to as a candy.
**The Sportsblahg recommends that Big League Chew rename their Sour Cherry blend to Sour “Barry” Cherry, after major league slugger Barry Bonds, who never really seemed happy, despite being one of the greatest players ever, playing one of the greatest games ever. Perhaps some packets could even contain a little HGH, but only enough so that people would never really know the truth, but just enough so that the FDA could launch an investigation.
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