Book will mark 100th anniversary of Cracker Jack cards

Posted Dec 30, 2011 by Bob D'Angelo

Updated Dec 30, 2011 at 01:45 AM

What seemed like a neat idea 25 years ago blossomed into a Cracker Jack project for Massachusetts residents Tom and Ellen Zappala.

Not to mention one neat baseball card reference book, with a second one on the way.

Twenty-five years ago, Tom Zappala was visiting the Baseball Hall of Fame and ducked into one of the sports card shops in downtown Cooperstown. He decided to buy a T-206 tobacco card, choosing catcher Ted Easterly.

“I thought it would look neat framed and matted behind my desk,” he said.

Love at first sight. Zappala began collecting more T-206 cards, And that led to the book he published last year with his wife Ellen, titled “The T-206 Collection: The Players & Their Stories.”

That coffee table sized book coincided with the 100-year anniversary of the iconic T-206 set, “We got a lot of emails and we had a tremendous amount of success,” the Boston-area businessman said.

What made the book special was the research involved. The backs of the T-206 cards had no information other than an advertiser (like Sweet Caporal, for example). Zappala researched each player depicted in the set and presented mini-biographies.

“Stories behind the players intrigued us,” he said.

Dead-ball era fans clamored for more, and Zappala hit upon the idea of a similar book about Cracker Jack baseball cards, also known as the E-145 set. The set was printed in 1914 and 1915 and featured players from the National, American and Federal leagues.

And that is what the Zappalas are working on now: a book on the original Cracker Jack set. “The Cracker Jack Collection: Baseball’s Prized Players,” is scheduled to be released in late 2013 or early 2014, Tom Zappala said.

This book is going to be different than the T-206 book, Zappala said, because photos of each of the 176 cards from the 1915 Cracker Jack set will be included — this set also has Shoeless Joe Jackson among its ranks — with no reprints. Some reprint photos were used in the T-206 book, a decision Zappala concedes was “a mistake.”

The photos are most likely going to be drawn from the collection of Don Spence, who has a highly graded, complete set of 1915 Cracker Jacks as part of his Lone Star Collection, Zappala said. The Lone Star Collection of 1915 Cracker Jacks, by the way, was ranked as the third best collection by Professional Sports Authenticator (known in the hobby as PSA). The Jackson card (No. 103) and the Ty Cobb card (No. 30) can fetch up to five figures in mint condition.

So why do a book on Cracker Jack cards?

“It’s in the top two or three of popular sets,” Zappala said. “So we went to Frito-Lay (which owns the Cracker Jack product) and got their blessing.

“I’m focused on history. We’re going to do more explaining about each player, so readers can get a feel for the players and their personal lives.”

Zappala pointed to catcher Russell “Lena” Blackburne as an example of unearthing interesting facts. Blackburne was featured in the T-206 set.

“A catcher. Pretty bad,” Zappala said.

But Blackburne’s contributions after his career ended made more of an impact. Blackburne invented and marketed (to his great profit), the “Lena Blackburne Rubbing Mud,” the substance used to rub the sheen off new baseballs before they are put into play.

That’s where two years of research pays off. “The Hall of Fame research department was a lot of help,” Zappala said.

And the Zappalas are now busy doing research for the Cracker Jack book.

Actually, they are busy, period. When I spoke with Tom on Thursday morning, he and Ellen were preparing to fly south to Florida to do book signings for “Nardo: Memoirs of a Boxing Champion,” the autobiography of former welterweight champion Tony DeMarco that was written with Ellen Zappala.

“He’s a New England icon,” Tom Zappala said.  “Like the Ted Williams of boxing.”

Must be. DeMarco, a boxer out of Boston’s North End who won the welterweight title in 1955, even had a street named after him in his old neighborhood.

Back to the Zappalas’ latest project. The first chapter of the Cracker Jack book will examine the history of the Cracker Jack brand. Frederick William Rueckheim invented the mixture of popcorn, peanuts and molasses and began selling it in 1896. Prizes were inserted into boxes beginning in 1912, and the first card set appeared two years later.

Tom Zappala said the book will have photos of vintage Cracker Jack items thanks to the collection of Harriet Joyce, “who has the foremost collection of Cracker Jack memorabilia.”  And Joe Orlando, president of PSA, will write a chapter focusing on grading and the popularity of the set.

It’s a pretty heady project for a guy who has a radio talk show in the Boston area and “bleeds Red Sox.”  It’s interesting, though, that Zappala’s most prized piece of memorabilia is a baseball bat once used by Frank “Home Run” Baker.

Baker led the majors in homers four times from 1911 to 1914 for the Philadelphia Athletics, never hitting more than 12 in a season.
What’s interesting to me is that Baker ended his career with the New York Yankees. I am hoping the bat came from Baker’s days in Philly.

Certainly, if the Zappalas put the same amount of effort and care into the Cracker Jack book as they did with the T-206 book, it will be like a home run for dead ball era card collectors. And lovers of baseball history, too.