Baseball, Candy, and Stickers

There's been a lot of heaviness in the Burbs household over the past few weeks.  As I discussed yesterday, work has been insanely busy in the lead up to summer break and my iPhone also recently went for a nice, long swim.  Furthermore, as if that wasn't enough to put a damper on my mood, some family drama has been frothing for several days now and finally boiled over the edge of the pot.  I'm not going to discuss these private matters on the blog, but I will say that next month's big family vacation to Tennessee is now going to be extra "interesting."  

Thankfully, there are three things that will always make my day better - baseball cards/memorabilia, candy, and stickers.  What can I say?  I'm a perpetual child... although I'm willing to bet that most of you out there reading my ramblings would probably agree with me here.  Therefore, you wouldn't be surprised to find out that my dark mood was almost instantaneously lifted on Friday afternoon when I found an envelope that blended all three of those joyful things. 

Baseball ephemera, candy, and stickers all in one package... what could possibly accomplish such a fun-tastical blend?

As detailed in a earlier post on Wrigley Roster Jenga, Long Ball Licorice is a new player in the confectionery industry.  Andre Chiavelli worked for many years at Yankee Stadium and as bans and ordinances against chewing tobacco worked their way up from the local ballparks and into MLB stadiums across the country, he saw an opportunity to pursue an idea which had been kicking around in the back of his head for a long time: plug-style licorice.  Then, he went out and secured the likeness of the one and only Babe Ruth for his new passion project and Long Ball Licorice was officially born.

I don't know how you feel about licorice, but it's absolutely one of my favorite candies... especially black licorice.  Although, the black variation elicits some of the strongest reactions from people that I've ever seen when discussing candy - it seems as though it's one of those things you either love or you hate.  How do you feel about black licorice?  I should note that Long Ball also comes in a red raspberry flavor, if you fall into the latter portion of society.

Meanwhile, I fall squarely into the former category and, when I won a free sampling of Andre's product through a Twitter contest back in January, I was particularly giddy.  In fact, my wife and I actually fought over the soft licorice plug.  Thank goodness LBL's distribution continues to spread and it's now available in Cracker Barrels and ballparks across the country - no more coming to blows over sweets!

Look for these pouches at your local CB restaurant or baseball diamond!

At any rate, seeing as how much I enjoyed this high quality, tasty confection, I have since been monitoring their social media channels quite closely.  Thus, I jumped at the chance when their official Twitter account offered up free Long Ball Licorice stickers to anyone who tagged a friend in the thread.  Seeing as my wife was nearly willing to slug me in the stomach for an extra bit of the licorice, I thought she'd be okay if I let her in on the secret to get some free swag.

Baseball, candy, stickers... that checks all the boxes for a desperately needed pick-me-up.  Plus, free is my all-time favorite price!

Just a few days later, an envelope filled with not one, not two, but FIVE free stickers showed up in my mailbox:

Here's a closer look at the decals themselves.  They are about the size of your standard business card and condense the packaging art down to that 3.5"x 2" frame.  In fact, Andre appears to have taken the layout/design for his LBL business cards and had them printed as stickers.  That's not a complaint, as that's just good marketing and I absolutely love this graphic design work. Meanwhile, the backs - of course - are blank; they are stickers, after all.

I was pleasantly surprised that I ended up with five of these little decals.  Now, I have one to keep for my oddball card collection (fun fact, that's also where the original business card resides) and I don't have to feel guilty about sticking the rest of them in strange places!  Again, my inner child is showing.

Like I said, I kept one for my baseball card collection and I gave one to my wife, since she was party to my sticker quest and arguably loves Long Ball Licorice even more than I do.

Apparently, she loves it so much that she thought it was worthy of being framed on her desk.  That's some awfully high praise!  However, she assures me that this is just staging and she'll be sticking Babe somewhere fun in the near future.

After handing one over to my better half, my next stop was to my portable record player.  This relic from the local school district had been mothballed in storage for decades before I rescued it a few years back.  Now, after years of neglect, it plays double duty as both the source of music in my spare bedroom and as a holder of stickers:

As you can see, Babe represents the first baseball-related autocollant to make it into the club, although it's not the first bit of sports ephemera.  Apparently, motorsports and stickers go together like peanut butter and ladies (a reference any NASCAR fan should understand).

That's three of the five stickers accounted for... now, what should I do with the other two?  I'm going to have to find somewhere in the area to adhere them, somewhere that will get Andre, Babe Ruth, and Long Ball Licorice maximum exposure.  Hmmmmmm.....  suggestions are welcome!

Thank you to Andre, Long Ball Licorice, and their Twitter account operator for providing me with these awesome freebies - it was a generous offer and they truly helped to brighten a dark week for the Burbs household.  See - there's nothing in this world that baseball, candy, and stickers cannot fix!

Those stickers are effective too... my taste buds are totally craving some Long Ball Licorice right now.