“What might have been could be yours,” Topps says of its new trading card featuring an NFL legend who could have been a baseball star.
Topps announced Wednesday the release of a new John Elway card that shows him as a member of the New York Yankees.
Before becoming a Pro Football Hall of Famer, Elway was drafted by the Yankees in the second round of the 1981 MLB Draft, six spots ahead of Tony Gwynn, who became one of the greatest hitters of all time.
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John Elway, a Yankees draft pick, is getting his own MLB trading card. (Getty Images)
To kick off the release, Topps got some help with one of the most infamous television characters of all time.
Topps’ ad starts with Stephen A. Smith interviewing Elway, asking him how the Yankees drafted him over Gwynn. Elway reminisces that “it was all [George] Steinbrenner.” That notion is somewhat true because Steinbrenner wanted Elway to be the team’s right fielder in 1985.
The ad then flashes back to “Steinbrenner’s office” ahead of the 1981 MLB Draft, where scouts are trying to convince The Boss, played by Larry David, to take Gwynn. David was the voice of Steinbrenner on “Seinfeld.” Steinbrenner never actually appeared on the show himself, but George Costanza worked for the owner in the show.
“The basketball player?” David asks, referring to Gwynn, who played basketball at San Diego State. “It’s gotta be Elway. I want him out in right field with that cannon of an arm.”
Denver Broncos great John Elway and former head coach Mike Shanahan during a halftime celebration of the team’s 1998 Super Bowl win over the Green Bay Packers at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver Oct. 23, 2022. (AAron Ontiveroz/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images)
The scouts reply that Gwynn will be better than Keith Hernandez, who made a well-known appearance on “Seinfeld.”
“I don’t like that big mustache,” David responds.
David then pictures kids lining up for Elway’s baseball card and his name in lights at Yankee Stadium.
“DiMaggio, Mantle, Ruth — it’s gotta be Elway,” David says again.
The ad closes with the card of Elway in a Yankee uniform playing the outfield, saying, “What might have been could be yours.”
It’s essentially the next version of “What Ifs” that Topps is producing. It did the same with Tom Brady and the Montreal Expos.
Elway played for the Yankees’ minor league system in 1982 before being the first pick in the 1983 NFL Draft by the Baltimore Colts.
Denver Broncos consultant John Elway during training camp at the UCHealth Training Center in Englewood, Colo., Aug. 5, 2022. (Isaiah J. Downing/USA Today Sports)
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Elway, though, was openly against playing for them, even threatening to stick with the Yankees if the Colts didn’t trade him.
They did eventually trade him to the Denver Broncos, and the rest is history.
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