King B Cubs

I prefer my meat in big slabs, say eight to ten ounces of sirloin, done medium well, please.  I don't want my meat processed, salted, and then shredded or rolled into sticks.

I prefer my baseball cards in 2½" x 3½" cardboard rectangles. Sometimes, though, circles are OK.

From 1988 - 2002, the meat snack brand King∙B put baseball discs in their products.  That is a pretty long run.  Can anyone think of a company that gave out baseball card premiums for more than fifteen consecutive years?  In fact, I bet the run may have continued, but the brand was sold to a competitor as the parent company refocused their lines to more healthy meat snacks.  (I've typed it twice, but it still is a nasty idea to me, meat snacks.... give me a snack that is chocolate and sweet, please!)

The King∙B discs have a diameter of 2 3/8" and feature logoless players.  The early sets had 24 different players.  In 1997 two more were added and in 2000 the set was bumped to 30 players.  For the only time, in 2001,  a second set called League Legends was issued, featuring retired players.

There are fourteen different Cubs discs over the fifteen year run.  Four times the Cubs were shut out, in 1995, 1996, 1998, and the 2001 base set.  However, in the 2001 League Legends, three of the eighteen were Cubs.  That was the only time multiple Cubs were on any King∙B checklist.

Ryne Sandberg was very popular with the King∙B folks, making six different appearances.  Andre Dawson was included twice, and the rest of the Cubs have just one King∙B disc.

The last one, Moises Alou, shows him in an Astros uniform.  But since he was with the Cubs in 2002, I count this as a Cubs card.

One of the fourteen shown is not my picture because I haven't been able to find the disc in any of my usual shopping places.  I check weekly but it is nowhere to be found.  It also is probably the most unlikely one to be so rare...

... the 1998 Mickey Morandini.  Are there that many Morandini collectors out there that none of these are to be found?