Home Run Derby

This week’s HRD Wayback Machine takes up back into the 1970’s and early 80’s.  

Back then, big name sports stars weren’t lining up to do commercials for Gatorade.  Instead, they were lining up to do commercials for Aqua Velva. 

Okay, Aqua Velva looks a lot like Gatorade, but it was (still is) a men’s aftershave.  I think it was orginally meant to be a mouthwash.  Your dad probably used it.  Personally, I don’t know anyone who used that stuff.

And with the tagline “A man wants to smell like a man” … the cheese factor in the Aqua Velva spots was simply priceless.  Even worse than that Johnny Bench commercial for Bubble Fudge.

Pete Rose was the posterboy for Aqua Velva … and he wasn’t afraid to sing the Aqua Velva jingle.

The cameo by Vic Tayback (Mel from the TV show Alice) makes that whole commercial for me.

But that’s not Charlie Hustle’s best work.  Here’s Rose simultaneously taking batting practice and putting on the charm on a female reporter. 

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Plumbing the depths of the internet in search of material for this silly baseball website usually takes me through a Dante Alighieri-esque trip through the Nine Circles of Hell that is YouTube.

But sometimes, it’s worth it, like Baseball Stadia and minifigs made of Lego (H/T RSM).  And especially when you find old commercials from the 70’s or 80’s with jingles that will stick in your head all day. 

Here’s two old baseball toys which allowed kids to “play” baseball by themselves.

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Sometimes Baseball legends and Hall of Famers make really bad endorsements.  Harry Caray doing commercials for La Preferida Mexican Foods springs to mind.

Add Johnny Bench to the list.

We’ve already seen that Bench will still sell his soul (appearing with Joe Morgan so George Clooney would show up on Ellen Degeneres’ show) for just about anything.

Here’s Johnny Bench back in 1979, pitching Bazooka’s Bubble Fudge Bubble Gum with his nephew Timmy. 

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So the Minnesota Twins didn’t keep Johan Santana.  Instead, they traded him to the Mets for prospects and thereby didn’t have to pay him anything near the $137.5 million that the Mets guaranteed Santana. 

So with all that money saved, what’s a Baseball Team to do? 

• Go get the next best available (but slightly cheaper) free agent pitcher?
• Get new, more comfortable uniforms?
• Lower ticket prices? 

Naaahhh.

If you’re the Minnesota Twins … you go and get a commercial during the Super Bowl … let’s watch …

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Joe Morgan loves Barry Bonds.

He makes this abundantly clear every time he announces a Giants game. He always has a new interview for that special time before the game when he “catches up” with Barry (it seems more like stalking to me).

Now, there is nothing wrong with this on the surface. It’s fine that Joe has a standing play date every time he’s in San Francisco and that Barry has found a member of the media he doesn’t wish would die a fiery death.

Barry might want to think about this, though, because Joe has gotten quite close to another prominent baseball figure in the past, and that player went on to get banned from baseball. I’m talking, of course, about Joe’s graceful aftershave conversation with Pete Rose in this classic 1979 Aqua Velva commercial.

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Our latest commercial is from the late seventies, as current New Tork Yankees manager Joe Torre hawks some fine looking suits for the defunct Bond’s Clothing Store in New York City …

I’m pretty sure that Torre was managing the New York Mets when he made this commercial. 

I love how Torre and another gentleman have successfully accessorized their Three-Piece Suits with Pinkie Rings.  Can you get any more 1970’s New York Italian-American than that?  Torre is from New York.

I’m guessing that Bond’s dressed the Corleone family. 

New thing starting today …. Baseball Commercials. Team promos, player endorsements, etc. Because I liked the Mets commercial post a week ago.

First up, the Seattle Mariners. And Ichiro.

Gotta love the theatrics some players have before their at-bats. This one lookslike it’s based in the martial arts.