Ice Cream Bar for Home Plate : Marketing: Ex-major league player follows up bubble gum with a new slant on dessert.

Thanks to Jim Bouton, Little Leaguers swagger up to the plate with just a little more authenticity, their cheeks crammed with the imitation chewing tobacco he invented (actually, Big League Chew is shredded bubble gum in a pouch). And thousands have bought his Big League personalized baseball cards so they can be on a bubble-gum card just like Cal Ripken Jr.

Before becoming an inventor, Bouton once pitched the Yankees to 21 wins. On the other hand, he also had a season when he was 4-15, and he has come up with half a dozen ideas that bombed in the garage.

So time will tell whether he has another winner in Big League Ice Cream Bars. He has taken the stick in a Good Humor chocolate-covered ice cream bar, shaped it like a baseball bat and added the autograph of one player from each of the 26 major-league teams.

They’re in the process of being introduced wherever single-portion Good Humor ice-cream products are sold. Plans are to have a new set of 26 players each year and to offer a bat-rack display for collectors.

“Everybody’s a kid,” says Bouton, “and I think it’s going to be as popular with adults as kids. Good Humor is a quality product. I can see adults eating the ice cream and giving the bats to kids.”

After all, nobody buys baseball cards to get the bubble gum.