Big News on 1976 Kellogg's Cards #1, #2 and #3

I found out today why 1976 Kellogg's baseball cards #1 (Steve Hargan), #2 Claudell Washington and #3 (Don Gullett) were not included in cereal boxes.  They were only included in factory sets.

Hargan's career was plagued by a bunch of injuries including carpal tunnel.  An avid collector himself, Hargan's carpal tunnel was constantly aggravated when he'd reach into a box of Frosted Flakes in search of the card stuck near the bottom of the box.  He was excited to be included in the set, but he based his decision to have his card only in the factory set on his volunteer work the the National Carpal Tunnel Research Group.


Claudell Washington, who struck out more times than anyone else against Nolan Ryan, had a different reason for being excluded from the 1976 Kellogg's set.  After his first all-star season in 1975 he wanted his card number in the set to be 15, his jersey number.  Dave Parker, who was third in the MVP voting in 1975, was already set with that card so Washington struck out again.  He finally relented when he heard that they were going to replace him with teammate Billy Williams.  I really would have liked to seen that Williams card even if it would have been a painful reminder that my favorite childhood player was in Oakland.


Don Gullett actually was okay with the number 3 in the set.  He was all-state in three sports in high school - football, basketball and baseball.  What was Don's issue?  After pitching the Reds to a game one win in the NLCS and getting two hits, a homer and three RBIs, Don insisted on having the card depict him as a slugger.  By the time he agreed to be shown as a pitcher it was too late for him to be included in the cereal boxes. 


In no other year did Kellogg's exclude a few of its cards from the cereal boxes.  Kellogg's spokesperson Sidd Finch assured kids in 1976 that this would never occur again.  He regretted not using the replacements that were planned - Billy Williams, Hamilton Porter, and Roy Hobbs.