Post filler

I'm not feeling it in terms of posting this Saturday. So I'm merely featuring the back of the 1976 Topps Bubblegum Blowing Championships card, since it's light and breezy and always good for a clever comment.

Everyone's seen the front, of winner Kurt Bevacqua blowing a monstrous Bazooka gum bubble. I featured it in a blog bat-around post a couple months ago. But the brackets on the back are almost as interesting and raise a few questions for me:

1. What did Bevacqua get for winning? I seem to remember he received something. I'm sure a supply of Bazooka gum was involved.

2. Did Johnny Oates receive anything for finishing second? Some Chiclets at least? (Do they still make Chiclets?)

3. How did they decide that Bevacqua and John Stearns would get byes in the first round? Was this thing seeded?

4. Rick Rhoden was the Dodgers' team champion. The guy is just an all-around athletic stud. He could pitch, he could hit, he's possibly the greatest golfer who used to be a major league baseball player, AND he could blow bubbles the size of small dogs. Is there anything he could not do?

5. Angel Mangual won the team championship for the A's, yet team runner-up Glenn Abbott participated instead, and was roundly trounced by Mickey Scott. Why didn't Mangual participate? Did they find nude photos?

6. Lastly, what kind of godless communists were the Tigers and Pirates for not participating in a bubblegum blowing contest?