Shakey's Pizza Baseball Cards 1975-1977

[jdandns]

There were 3 regional Shakey's Baseball Card sets issued in the mid 1970's in total, all featuring retired players with a heavy accent on players already in the Hall of Fame by the mid 70's. This consisted of two smaller sets in 1975 and 1977 sandwiching a larger one in 1976.

From what I can tell, these were generally distributed at a handful of Pacific Northwest Shakey's Pizza restaurants, or else an annual card convention in the area, and almost certainly by various mail order ads through the 80s, maybe into the 90's.

Here's my set of 1975 Shakey's "West Coast Greats". These are a little oversized and on thinner card stock, highlighting players born in the area or some who had success playing for the early area teams in the Pacific Coast League (PCL).







There were no player stats/info on the reverse, which all look like the DiMaggio card back that is shown here, although the Joltin' Joe was the only card that could get you $1 off the price of a Family Size pizza. (I'm not sure whether or not you had to surrender it for the discount. Maybe they just punched a hole in it and gave it back. I guess they could've clipped the edge of the Clipper.)

[jdandns]

Here's the 1976 "Shakey's Pizza Hall of Fame" set, which at 158 cards (plus a promo card good for a dollar off a pizza pie), was a much larger affair than the previous offering.

This one is blue-bordered, standard sized, and on thicker card stock, but still a little thinner than Topps cards, circa 1976. The highly informative set features the Hall of Famers in the order they were inducted beginning in 1936 through the 1976 class, with short biographies and stats when available on the reverse sides.

In addition to the players, the set includes the early executives, managers, and umpires who were inducted. Towards the end of the set are the first Negro League players beyond Jackie Robinson to be enshrined beginning in the early 1970's with the inductions of Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Monte Irvin, Buck Leonard, Oscar Charleston, Cool Papa Bell, and Judy Johnson.
























































The Joe Cronin card #80 is autographed, and was the only signed card in this set which I acquired complete about 13 years ago.
For some reason, Robin Roberts has the final two cards in the set, despite the fact that the numbering (157 & 158) is the only difference between them. There is a promo card featuring local hero Earl Averill which bears the letter "A" as opposed to a number. The front of the card is the same as the regular card of Averill, #147 in the set, but it has a different reverse, and like the DiMaggio card in the '75 set, it was good for $1.00 off a family sized pizza.

There is a 5th Seattle-area Shakey's location added to the 4 locations that apparently sponsored the previous set. None of the Shakey's restaurants listed are still in existence. In fact, there is currently only one Shakey's Pizza Parlor in all of Washington state, located in Pasco to the east. A location in Renton, WA, just closed on January 20, 2025, ending the chain's longtime presence in Western Washington. Originally founded in Sacramento, CA, in 1954, Shakey's was the first pizza chain in the United States. At its peak in 1968, they boasted 340 locations, but are today down to a few dozen, mostly located in California, along with a small international presence in Japan, Singapore, and the Philippines.

[jdandns]

The third and final set, the 1977 "Shakey's Pizza All Time Greats" set, shrunk from the prior issue in more ways than one. There are only 25 cards in it (plus 4 promo cards) and the cards are smaller than standard size. These are red bordered, but do have the upgrade of facsimilie signatures in blue atop the black and white photography used on all cards in all 3 series. The odd patterns on these final cards (and on the 1975 issue) appear to be a trick of the ancient flatbed scanner I use as the photographs look normal to the naked eye. The card reverses are similar to the '76 set, with plenty of information in clean, dark type on white-back stock.

Here's mine:





There are three promo cards lettered A, B, and C. Once again, hometown favorite Earl Averill is on one of these, as are Bob Johnson and Johnny Mize, both of whom would be elected to the Hall in 1981. This time around, Mize holds the valuable $1 off coupon on his cardback. Each of the pizza coupons from these sets expired on Halloween, Oct. 31st, in 1975, 1976, and 1977, respectively. It seems likely therefore, the promos in this and the '76 set were originally issued sometime earlier each year, likely at the area summer sportscard convention.



The final promo card is unnumbered/unlettered and was apparently distributed to new members and/or at the 1977 WSSCA annual convention.



To their credit, the Washington State Sports Collectors Association is still an ongoing concern some 50 years after these cards were issued.

https://www.wsscaseattle.com/

I'm missing 4 of the regular cards, Gehrig, Grove, Musial, and Shoeless Joe, which I've been meaning to pick up, but haven't gotten around to.
None of these are mine, but here they are, for purposes of completing the photo gallery (and reminding me I still need 'em):

[TimBuckTwo]

Shakey's in my town was the place to be until it ran out of gas.

[SaveMeTheGum]

Those are great! I loved Shakey's from my CA days!

[tedwilliamsfan]

Thank you for posting all this information and all the images. There are some really nice pictures used in these sets.

[Dielon]

Hey, lets eat at a Shakeys! Love the food releases

[boxbuster7]

those are awesome!

[frenchquarter]

Those are great cards, especially the ones with $1 off coupon. Shakey's was always my favorite pizza place until they shut down.

Thank you for posting them.

[smanzari]

I miss Shakey's - Chicago Pub-Style is close (and around me) but just not quite like that cracker-thin crust.