A new Topps ad on “Baseball What-Ifs” to promote their 2024 Bowman Draft trading card set has pulled together an incredible range of sports figures. That would be ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith, Pro Football Hall of Fame quarterback John Elway, and comedy legend Larry David of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm fame.
The ad here (following in the vein of one Topps did last year for an alternate history Tom Brady baseball card in last year’s Bowman Draft set) is about including an Elway card in this set. That’s Elway’s first-ever baseball card, and it has him in New York Yankees’ pinstripes, as they drafted him in the second round (52nd overall) of the 1981 MLB Draft following his junior year at Stanford. (He played college baseball for the Cardinal as well as football.) Elway was previously drafted by the Kansas City Royals in the 18th round of the 1978 draft out of high school but didn’t sign with them.
The 1981 selection was especially notable, though. While Elway was already shining on the gridiron at that point, many scouts were high on his baseball potential and thought he might choose that career as a pro. Yankees’ owner, George Steinbrenner, was particularly keen on him, with the 2013 Elway to Marino ESPN 30 for 30 documentary discussing how Steinbrenner planned to make Elway the team’s starting right fielder by 1985.
That sets up this alternate-history ad. Notably, this is a collaboration between Topps and Omaha Productions, the company founded by another famed Denver Broncos QB in Peyton Manning, who served as the moderator for a special event with David this September. It starts with Smith asking Elway how the Yankees drafted him six picks ahead of Tony Gwynn, who would be chosen 58th overall by the San Diego Padres. That sets up a sequence of Steinbrenner (played in voice-only fashion by David the way he frequently did on Seinfeld) demanding his front office take Elway over Gwynn before this is revealed to be all a dream for Elway.
That’s a clever ad, with the highlight being David’s performance in the “Steinbrenner” role (which he played 12 times over five seasons of Seinfeld). And there are lots of good little references in there, from “Keith Hernandez? I don’t like that big mustache” (famed player-turned-broadcaster Hernandez, who had his own memorable Seinfeld appearance, certainly does have a notable mustache, and Steinbrenner was famed for his policies against facial hair) to Steinbrenner ordering a calzone (one Seinfeld episode saw George Costanza bringing Steinbrenner an eggplant calzone for lunch each day) to the discussion of Elway’s name being suited for car dealerships (he currently owns several dozen in Colorado) and him waking up at 12:04 (the Dec. 4 launch of this collection).
It’s impressive to see all these figures brought together for an ad, especially one like this that’s a digital exclusive. But some of that is about the advantages of technology; Smith’s scene was shot at ESPN’s Seaport Studios in New York City, while David recorded his lines from California, and Elway and “Steinbrenner’s staff” shot their scenes in Colorado. And that fits with some of Omaha’s previous approaches to quickly bringing together big names from across the country, as with an eight-player Bud Light ad they turned around in three weeks last year.
It all adds up to an interesting ad, and one shining a light on a lesser-known sports what-if. Elway certainly was a remarkable baseball player, and he did even play short-season baseball for the Yankees’ Oneida affiliate in 1982 (which is presumably where the picture of him on the card comes from), playing outfield and batting .318/.432/.464 across 185 plate appearances.
While Elway wound up choosing football (after being picked first overall by the Baltimore Colts in the 1983 NFL Draft following a great senior season at Stanford, then traded to Denver quickly when he refused to play for Baltimore), that wasn’t a certainty given his baseball prowess, as shown in this “delicious dilemma” piece from Ray Ratto in the summer of 1982 on the choice Elway would eventually have to make. It’s interesting to see this alternate history explored with this new card, and Topps and Omaha certainly found a great way to promote it with this high-powered spot.
[Topps on YouTube]
