2006 Ba-ZOO-ka Baseball

Old packs of Bazooka are fun, but they never have any players I like in them. Based on this indisputable fact, and because each pack comes with a piece of gum that looks as if it were manufactured and packaged by Springbok, we're going to go through this pack and make a comparison between each player/card and a popular brand of chewing gum.

Let's tear in. (Get your jaws ready.)

Top to Bottom:
125 Jorge Posada Blue Parallel (Black Jack. Jorge has proudly worn the black and white of the Bronx Bombers since 1995.)

66 Curt Schilling Gold Parallel (Trident. Not from a fresh pack, mind you, but an eight-year-old piece that your mom finds in the bottom of her purse that has hairs and bits of Kleenex stuck to it. Even this card is creased right down the middle.)

16 of 24 Texas Rangers Cartoon (Bazooka, naturally.)

2 of 12 Checklist featuring Nick Johnson, Paul Konerko, Raul Ibanez, and Todd Helton (Gum from a machine propping open a barber shop door, the profits from which go to the American Foundation for the Blind. Just 'cause you get a whole handful of 'em, don't mean they taste any good. Good luck not swallowing your fillings after their forced removal.)

89 Chris Carpenter (PAL. Those little pieces of PAL gum are the workhorses of the gum industry, just like Carpenter was in 2005. Thirteen straight decisions and a 21-5 record earns him the distinction.)

18 Wily Mo Pena (Chiclets. Just because, señor.)

108 Carl Crawford (Bubble Tape. Emerging star on a new-ish team with flashy, cool logos. Carl Crawford and his 6'2" frame is six feet of Bubble Tape personified.)

14 Mike Sweeney (Extra. Sweeney has only played for the Royals over his 17-year career, except for last year when he was with Oakland. Perhaps that knocks him down to one of the derivative flavors, like Cool Watermelon. Rejoining the Royals to end his career might put him back atop that Peppermint pedestal.)

Make it a point today to gave a good chew.