Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 15, 1993 TAG: 9306150026
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: CLIFF EDWARDS ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: CHICAGO LENGTH: Medium
Cracker Jack is nothing without the sweet anticipation millions of people have felt as they tore into a box of the glazed popcorn and peanut snack, hoping the prize hidden inside would be "a good one."
It's been around for 100 years, and a centennial celebration is planned for Wednesday at - where else? - a baseball game at Chicago's Wrigley Field.
Over the years, more than 17 billion prizes have gone into the boxes - whistles, games, tops, yo-yos, brooches, joke books, instant tattoos and miniature pinball games.
F.W. Rueckheim introduced his peanuts, popcorn and molasses treat at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The name didn't appear until several years later, after a salesman tasted the confection and exclaimed: "That's a cracker jack!" - slang for "fantastic."
Sailor Jack, modeled after Rueckheim's grandson, and his faithful dog, Bingo, didn't appear on boxes until 1918.
But it was the prizes, introduced in 1912, and Cracker Jack's relationship with baseball that sealed the snack's place in history.
The prizes now are collectors' items. They reflect a changing America, said Alex Jaramillo Jr., a collector from Fontana, Calif., who wrote a book about the Cracker Jack prizes.
"In the '50s, the prizes reflected that era by being baseball cards, TV stuff, cowboy stuff," he said. "In the '60s, there were flower-child items. In the 1940s, you'd have the World War II-type prizes - soldiers, airplane spotter cards and things like that."
In 1908, composer Albert Von Tilzer and lyricist Jack Norworth wrote "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," which forever tied the snack to baseball with the line, "Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack." Three-quarters of the nation's ballparks sell the snack.
by CNB