Depending on who you ask, Reggie Jackson was neither the first nor the last baseball player to have a candy bar named after him. But for people of a certain age, the Reggie Candy bar, first available from 1978 to 1981, and then reintroduced in 1993 and 2023, is iconic. And when it’s not in production, the people who miss it miss it badly.
The story of the Reggie bar, of course, is intertwined with the story of its namesake. And it started with a well-publicized comment Jackson made in frustration.
If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me…
Officially, Babe Ruth didn’t have a candy bar named after him. The Curtiss candy company always said they named the Baby Ruth candy bar in 1921 after Ruth Cleveland. Ruth Cleveland was the daughter of President Grover Cleveland, who had been president… 25 years before. So it would have been like naming a candy bar after Chelsea Clinton in 2021. Curtiss successfully fended off a lawsuit from Babe Ruth in 1931, but that didn’t mean everyone bought the story.
One of the people who didn’t buy the story was apparently Reggie Jackson. In 1976, he was arguably the biggest star in baseball, and he was in the final year of his contract. His former team, the Oakland Athletics, traded him to receive some value for him rather than losing him to free agency. The Baltimore Orioles sent three lesser players to Oakland in return. They knew they would probably lose Jackson after a single season, but they hoped he would be motivated to produce a monster season and maximize his value in free agency. Maybe he could propel them to the postseason that year.
That’s the backstory behind Jackson’s famous words, “If I played in New York, they’d name a candy bar after me.” It wasn’t just bravado. Nor was it just his way of telling the New York Yankees he was interested in playing for them. He was unhappy in Oakland and had even asked to be traded. But it still hurt for it to end that way, discarded by a team he’d helped turn into a dynasty, exiled in a strange city as a one-year mercenary.
The Bun Bar
The Baby Ruth bar wasn’t a new invention in 1921. Curtiss had an existing candy bar it called Kandy Kake that it refashioned as the Baby Ruth bar in 1920 and released in 1921.
If history was going to repeat itself, Curtiss had a candidate. In 1973, Curtiss came to own the rights to a decades-old candy bar called the Bun Bar. It was a disc-shaped candy that came in three varieties, combining chocolate and peanuts with a third major ingredient. One of those varieties was caramel.
It’s no accident that the caramel Bun Bar closely resembled the Reggie Bar. But we’ve gotten a little bit ahead of ourselves.
The leadup to the introduction of the Reggie candy bar in 1978
To the surprise of absolutely nobody, the New York Yankees signed Reggie Jackson for the 1977 season. It wasn’t all smooth sailing at first. Jackson made a comment in an interview that appeared insulting to Yankee catcher Thurman Munson. And after Jackson misplayed a fly ball off the bat of Boston’s Jim Rice in the bottom of the first inning on June 18, 1977, manager Billy Martin removed Jackson from the field in mid-inning. When Jackson arrived in the dugout, it turned into a physical altercation between the two men. Martin lunged at Jackson, and four other coaches had to intervene.
But dark valleys have a way of making mountaintop experiences greater. And Jackson poured it on in the second half, helping the Yankees climb into first place.
All was forgiven by October 1977. Reggie Jackson had a postseason for the ages that led to Thurman Munson giving him the nickname Mr. October. His crowning achievement was hitting three home runs in Game 5 of the 1977 World Series. The only other player to do that in a World Series was Babe Ruth. The Yankees, powered by Reggie Jackson, won their first World Series in 15 years.
Two days later, Curtiss announced it was rushing the Reggie Bar to market, giving Reggie Jackson his candy bar namesake. A likeness of Reggie Jackson swinging a bat graced the wrapper. The commercials featured footage of Jackson’s postseason home runs and he served as the candy bar’s pitch man. There was no question this candy bar was named for a baseball player.
Reggie Jackson’s candy bar was a hit, driving $11 million in sales.
Did Reggie Jackson’s candy bar come with baseball cards?
There is a misconception that the original Reggie bar came with baseball cards, or at least a single card. Reggie Jackson’s likeness, minus the Yankees logo, did appear on the wrapper. And the original 1970s candy wrapper did bear a resemblance to a baseball card wrapper. But distributing baseball cards with any type of gum or candy product was dangerous territory that likely would have gotten both Reggie Jackson and Curtiss sued. Topps had a monopoly on baseball cards that other companies had been trying since 1955 to break, and wouldn’t successfully break until 1981.
I remember getting a Reggie bar and being disappointed that it didn’t come with a baseball card. That was the first and last time I got a Reggie bar. But my disappointment over the lack of a baseball card wasn’t the only reason that was the last time I got a Reggie bar. Later that year, Reggie Jackson’s candy bar was discontinued.
The availability of vintage Reggie Bar wrappers on Ebay suggests more than a few people saved the wrapper since they didn’t get a baseball card. I wish I’d thought of that.
Why the Reggie Jackson candy bar was discontinued
A combination of factors led to Reggie Jackson’s candy bar being discontinued. In 1981, Nabisco purchased the parent company of Curtiss. Curtiss’ Baby Ruth bar certainly played into Nabisco’s future plans. No matter its namesake, it always sold well. But Nabisco had every motivation to evaluate where the Reggie bar fit in its future plans. Or if there was a fit at all.
The 1981 player’s strike
1981 was a bad year for baseball. The players went on strike during the season, and that caused the season to be interrupted and abbreviated due to lack of enough time to squeeze in a full season before winter.
Reggie Jackson’s decline
Reggie Jackson had a substandard season by his standards in 1981. That raised some concerns. It could have been just a case of the interruption keeping him from getting on track. The break in the season affected players differently. Some of them benefited from the rest, and ended up having a really good season. Jackson was one of the players who did not benefit. But there was also the question if, at 35, age was catching up with him and his career was in decline.
Reggie Jackson’s departure from New York
The Yankees offered Reggie Jackson a two-year contract at $500,000 a year to be a designated hitter. They also pre-emptively acquired Ken Griffey Sr. to take over Jackson’s old position in right field.
Instead, Jackson signed a contract with the California Angels for $900,000 a year plus attendance bonuses for four years, and a fifth year at $500,000. The Angels also promised to give him more playing time in right field.
Wait, that Ken Griffey?
Jackson’s replacement in New York, Ken Griffey Sr., never had a candy bar named after him. But his son did. In 1989, Ken Griffey Jr. was a phenom and Pacific Trading Card Company produced a baseball card-sized chocolate bar with his likeness on it.
So there’s a loose connection between the Reggie Bar and the Ken Griffey Jr. candy bar, besides being the only two baseball players to officially lend their names to a candy bar. Reggie Jackson lost his job in New York to Ken Griffey Jr.’s dad.
The original Reggie Bar’s ride into the sunset
As for the Reggie bar, it quietly left the market the year Reggie Jackson left New York. If there was any official announcement, I couldn’t find it. All I could find was New York Post columnist Dick Young, in his May 18, 1982 opinion column, saying the Reggie Bar failed because it was too small for the price, and kids want a lot for their money.
But if the other factors weren’t also in play, I’m not sure the Reggie bar gets discontinued in 1981. I also wonder if Nabisco considered distributing the Reggie bar with baseball cards. Topps’ monopoly on baseball cards was overturned in 1981, so it would have been possible. And it might have given the product a boost.
With both the Yankees and the discontinued Reggie candy bar behind him, Reggie Jackson by his own admission wasn’t the same player. There was regret on both sides. George Steinbrenner said letting Reggie Jackson go was the biggest mistake he ever made. Jackson was inconsistent in California. He had three seasons that approached his old standards, but two where he struggled. He concluded his career in 1987, returning for one final season to his original team, the Oakland Athletics.
The Hall of Fame and the revival of the Reggie bar
In 1993, Reggie Jackson was inducted into the baseball Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility. To commemorate this, Clark, a Pittsburgh-based candy maker, reintroduced the Reggie Bar in 1993. This time it came packaged with three baseball cards, since the legal problems surrounding distributing baseball cards with candy had changed.
But the revival was brief. After about a year, Reggie Jackson’s candy bar was back on the list of discontinued foods we’d like to see return.
In 2023, a small company specializing in reviving old discontinued candies acquired the rights to use Reggie Jackson’s name on a candy bar. They independently came up with a formulation that Jackson personally approved. A specialty candy shop Long Island distributes the new Reggie bar. Or if you’re willing to buy a whole box, you can get a whole box on Amazon. So, as of 2023, the Reggie Bar is back in production, but it’s not something you can get at your nearest grocer like the old days of 1978 to 1981.
And if you don’t live near Long Island and don’t want to buy a whole box, the Bun Bar remains available in the upper midwest, now made by Pearson’s. There’s been some reformulation, so a Pearson’s caramel Bun Bar isn’t quite the same as the old Reggie Bar. But it’s the closest thing you’re likely to find without traveling to Long Island.
David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.