Gillette’s Pitch Switcher

Razor blade endorsements by well-known baseball players aren’t the norm at Gillette Co. anymore, because executives want the products--not the athletes--to be the star.

That wasn’t the case during the 1960s and ‘70s, though, when Gillette hired some of baseball’s biggest stars to help sell blades. Commercials running during the season and the World Series featured players sitting on bare stages as off-screen announcers tossed one-liners at them. The only prop was a box of razor blades.

Players such as Tom Seaver and Tony Oliva turned in funny but wooden endorsements. Several of them had the “deer in the headlights” look.

Seaver made a thoroughly staged attempt at keeping a straight face during a 1970s commercial as an announcer made jokes, including a last-ditch order to “Get the football player” out to replace him.

Pete Rose seemed comfortable in the glare of the television lights in a 1971 spot, but home-run king Hank Aaron seemed out of sorts.

The highlight was seeing the Alou brothers--Matt, Felipe and Jesus--in uniform during the 1960s as they worked through cornball dialogue.

Gillette dropped big-name endorsers in the late 1970s, a spokesman said. Unknown actors reading from scripts now hawk the razors, such as in the current crop of commercials for the Sensor Excel.