Mets Card of the Week: Fleer World Series Mets-Orioles

This is all about the gum.

It could be about a lot of different things, I suppose.

The vibrant Laughlin artwork. The earlier iterations of the set (1967 and 1970), or the subsequent update (1978).

Maybe the trajectory of the Topps monopoly…

Or perhaps the 1969 World Series itself. Which I suspect you all know a thing or two about.

Nope. This time, it’s all about the gum.

I stretched my cheeks with a steady diet of Topps gum in the early ‘70s. And don’t get me wrong—it was sweet, pink manna from Brooklyn.

Sure, it left its mark on the occasional key card, imprinting a rude rectangular slab on a Mays or a Met. But who cared about condition back then?

But as much as I enjoyed the Topps gum, the Fleer gum that came with this set was a breed apart.

The basic shape of a stick was the same, but the configuration was slightly different. The Fleer gum was more extruded than its Topps counterpart, and sat in your palm with grace and balance.

The mouth feel of the Fleer gum was subtler as well. Topps gum would splinter and crack quite easily, and the jagged edges would poke at your soft palate as you worked to soften up a stick.

But Fleer went in buttery, and kept that consistency as the chew progressed.

The key differentiating feature of Fleer gum was the dusting of powdered sugar/starch that covered each piece. This had the practical effect of making the gum less sticky, and therefore less likely to adhere to the cards.

It also added a slight and welcome graininess to the otherwise smooth gum, giving the Fleer a complexity that the Topps could not match.

I see stacks of these World Series cards at shows sometimes, and I’ll occasionally pick up a brick and thumb through it. I’ll look at the cartoons, maybe read a couple of sentences on the back.

But in my heart what I’m doing is chewing a fresh stick of Fleer gum…