Wiffle Ball boxes

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Posted By: Chuck

Can anyone tell me definitively when Wiffle Ball began selling the boxes with player pictures on the outside? I am not talking about the boxes issued from 1976 to 1978 with discs on the inside. (The correct answer is roughly 1973.)

I am especially interested in the Pete Rose boxes. Please see this webpage for pictures: http://www.4192cards.com/rose/oddball2/70-78/index.html

Thanks. Chuck

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Posted By: Brian Powell

Chuck, I vaguely remember the time that the wiffle ball was introduced, and a couple of the players whose pictures appeared on their boxes. It was 1962, the year after Whitey Ford had had his best season. I do recall seeing a few black and white commercials for the new wiffle ball, with Whitey Ford in them. The idea being conveyed was that it was easy to learn how to throw the curve ball like Whitey Ford, if you bought and pitched with the new Wiffle ball. They had fun action sequences of Whitey using a wiffle ball to throw his curve. I do not remember if his children were also in the commercial. Back in the late 1980s, someone in SCD offered one of the very early Wiffle balls (the smaller ball) and the box. It had Roger Maris's head pictured on the box, in black and white. Stupid me, I sold it about 4-5 years later. I wish I had it back, not that it's more valuable, but it was a terrific display piece, as well as virtually pristine. Chuck--hope this is some of what you were after. -Brian Powell

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Posted By: David McDonald

Have to respectfully differ on date of Wiffle ball's introduction. We played Wiffle ball in the fifties when I was a kid. They have a website which does not come right out and say when the Wiffle ball was introduced but they do have game rules with a 1954 copyright date. http://www.wiffle.com/about_rules.htm

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Posted By: David M

Chuck,
The wiffle ball box with Pete Rose that you are asking about, ran for a number of years. I'm not sure when it was introduced, but I bought one around 1976 or 1977 and still have it. It couldn't have been before that, because that's when I started collecting. Hope this helps.

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Posted By: Brian Powell

Dave---Thanks for your respectful correction. You know, in the spring of 1962, I was only just shy of eight years old when the Wiffle Ball commercials began to be shown. It was also only my second year of being interested at all in baseball. With Roger Maris breaking Babe Ruth's record, and Whitey Ford breaking Babe Ruth's record, and the Yankees on top again, plus continuing expansion, baseball was on a real high mark going into 1962. There seemed to be many more baseball promotions that year. I suppose the Wiffle ball people decided, and rightly so, that that was a good time to make a major publicity campaign to increase sales. It never occurred to me that they had already been around for a while. Thanks for setting me straight. -Brian Powell

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Posted By: leon

Not much to add but I loved wiffle balls.....I still like them!! It's fun to throw those gigantic curves and not hurt my elbow...(I killed my elbow throwing too many curves, while pitching in little league, at a very young age (late 1960's))....