It's Cott To be Good!

Anyone remember the phrase used as the title of today's post? It was quite well known in the 60's and 70's as TV ads for Cott Beverages were seemingly everywhere in the New York tri-state area.  Cott also has an indirect tie to the 1951 Topps Red Backs bagged set and a direct tie to a 1950 (with a 1949 copyright) Ed-U-Cards boxed card game called Batter Up.

 

We've already looked at the various baseball diamonds that came with the 1950 card game and its 1957 descendant but there is a promotional version of the 1950 game (36 cards)  that was a mail-in premium for Cott's and featured the same paper diamond used in all of these games.  The cards are quite the period piece:

That catcher is going to break a finger if he keeps handling pitches that way! Here is the Cott logo on back:

That's a 1949 Ed-U-Cards copyright at the bottom. And of course, the diamond was in the box as well:

It is worth noting the Card Game Rules are the same as those on the diamonds packed with the '51 Red Backs set but there are slight differences on the bottom left panel when compared to later versions.

The diamond measures 7" x 8 5/8" in case you were wondering.

And let us not forget the boxed version of the 1968 Topps Game Cards, called "Batter Up":

That's a neat box but the graphics look like they depict a game of Town Ball or something. Ed-U-Cards had changed their diamond design for games issued after 1957 (there are some from the 1960's that had MLB themed cards for some teams) and I am not sure if Topps included a diamond in the '68 boxed set as the instructions were on the back of the box:

There is still more to the Topps and Ed-U-Cards connection-I am awaiting something in the mail before I can show you but stay tuned......