Hostess Files For Bankruptcy

In an effort to prove that I can, in fact, turn any news story into a baseball post, allow me to present Hostess filing for Chapter 11. I won’t even take the easy way out by comparing Sno Balls to baseballs even if Hostess is missing the obvious MLB tie-in with their delightful coconut-y treat. Hostess is in serious financial trouble and doesn’t even have a glamorous Ponzi scheme B-story like the Mets. The Twinkie empire owes truckloads of cash for legacy pensions and was carrying a $1.4 billion debt as of December 10. Not good for a company that declared bankruptcy in 2009.

Hostess will continue to crank out Zingers with $75 million debtor-in-possession financing from several investors so don’t get your circus tent sized tighty whities in a twist just yet. Although, it’s hard to be optimistic for a food company that didn’t see a spike in sales after it turned out Twinkies are better deep fried. If deep frying can’t save you in this era of American fatdom, you’re in trouble. Seriously, what self-loathing person thought deep frying a Twinkie was the winning combination of diabetes and heart disease?

I did promise you baseball, didn’t I? Back in the 1970s, Hostess printed baseball cards on the back of some of their snacks. They sporadically did this again in the 80s and 90s and I vaguely remember butchering the cut-out process. Because it was mainly kids high on sugar cutting out the cards, there aren’t very many in mint condition.

If you have a mint condition Nolan Ryan from 1976, it could fetch as much as $75. Maybe Hostess has 19 million Nolan Ryan cards in its mom’s attic. That would get it out of debt. Hostess’ mom should check for some Star Wars toys in the original packaging while she’s up there too. Hostess could get back in the black.

And that’s how you make a baseball post out of a cake company filing for bankruptcy.