Baseball Candy Bars - Random Trivia Answers

• A1) Reggie Jackson. Two years later, in 1978, fans attending the New York Yankees home opener were each given a Reggie! bar, containing chocolaty covered caramel and peanuts and named for the slugging outfielder who had been traded from the Baltimore Orioles before the previous season.
• A2) Travis Hafner. The designated hitter, who led the American League in slugging percentage in 2006, was variously nicknamed "Project" and "Donkey", so the two were combined.
• A3) Frank Thomas. The retail candy contained milk chocolate, caramel, and pecans, while a separate fund-raiser called the Frank Thomas bar, produced only in 1996, had milk chocolate and "crisp" rice.
• A4) Jose Canseco. The outfielder had become the first major leaguer to hit 40 home runs and steal 40 bases in the same season in 1988, a year before the "nutrition" bar debuted. The bar, which hopes you'll "Taste the Power", contains mostly peanuts, corn syrup, sugar, molasses, and dextrose with enough cocoa powder thrown in to call it chocolate.
• A5) Mike Mussina. The fund raising bar showcases its contents as milk chocolate and peanut butter.
• A6) Wade Boggs. The number on the third baseman's .352 bar represented his career batting average at the time (1990). The Hall-of-Famer's average had slipped to .328 by the time he retired in 1999.
• A7) Pete Rose. The "Carob Coated" and "Protein Rich" bar, whose main ingredient is corn syrup, brags that it contains "Vitamins and Minerals".
• A8) Tony Gwynn. The 1990 confection is "pure" milk chocolate, smooth like the 8-time batting champ's swing.
• A9) Ken Griffey, Jr.. Edmonds' Pacific Trading Cards Inc. couldn't produce the milk chocolate trading card-sized bars fast enough to keep up with demand in the Seattle area. Ironically, the 1997 American League MVP is allergic to chocolate.
• A10) Cecil Fielder. The year before his streak, the portly first baseman and designated hitter had found his stroke during a year in Japan.
• A11) Larry Walker. The Colorado Rockies outfielder had led the National League in homers (49) and on-base percentage (.452), slugging percentage (.720), and total bases (409) and captured one of his seven Gold Gloves.
• A12) Cal Ripken, Jr.. The Cal Bar, with milk chocolate and crispy rice, debuted in January 1993 and reached sales of 1.4 million in only four months, primarily from fund raising efforts.

Bonus Factoids:

• The Chipper Bar, named for Chipper Jones, and the Albert Belle Bar both featured milk chocolate with crisped rice and were first produced by the same company, Malley's, in 1996 and 1997 respectively. The David Justice Bar was made by a different company, Morley's, two years later, but had the same ingredients, just like the company's Cal Bar and Big Hurt Bar.
• Although the Baby Ruth candy bar, formerly called the Kandy Kake, was almost undoubtedly named for Babe Ruth, the Curtiss Candy Company got away with claiming it was named for Grover Cleveland's daughter Ruth (who had passed away 15 years earlier!). There was an official Ruth's Home Run Candy Bar at one point (not sure when, but it cost five cents, so probably also in the 1920s).
• Although Hank Aaron advertised for the Oh Henry candy bar, it debuted in 1919 and took its current name the following year, fourteen years before the slugger was born.