“Covering the Bases” is the title I am giving to my columns dedicated to a single card – which is most of my postings. Today’s deep dive is on a recent card that features an image I think we will see a lot this week.
2018 Topps #US79 A Game for Everyone: Altuve & Judge
This picture is one that most baseball fans are familiar with even if they don’t follow the Astros or Yankees. Fortunately for collectors Topps recorded the image on cardboard. I say recorded because for the last 60+ years Topps has served as an unofficial record/history of the game and its players. There are base cards, subsets, inserts, leaders, record breakers, highlights, All-Stars and more. Each card is a photographic record of the game’s history which is accompanied by a back side that contains stats, demographic info, and if we are lucky a fun fact or two.
This is an All-Star card, however I also see it as a Multi-Player. I consider the multi-player cards a “hidden subset”. Lot of sets have them, but they are typically not sequential and rarely listed in any sort of checklist form.
These are nice to showcase any time we find the two players paired for some reason. That is the case this week when Altuve and Judge are featured players on the two teams facing each other in the ALCS.
The Topps copy team also came up with a perfect title for this card “A Game for Everyone.” This is the “size doesn’t matter” card. Baseball-Reference lists Jose Altuve at 5′ 6″ and 165 lbs. while Aaron Judge is at 6’7″ 282 lbs. The difference in height is over a foot, weight over 100 lbs.
Game Dating
It was pretty easy to find this picture in Getty Images. The information accompanying the photo gives us the date of May 30 2018. A game the Yankees won 5-3, Altuve and Judge each went 2-4, with only Judge factoring in the scoring collecting the go-ahead run in the 5th.
Aaron Judge was on 2nd base twice in the game once in the first and again in the fifth. Judging by the fact that the outfield seating appears pretty filled in, I suspect that this picture was taken in the first.
The Photo was shot by Erick W. Rasco who has done a lot of work for Sports Illustrated including a famous cover of a lot of other “photographers” witnessing the American Pharaoh winning the Triple Crown.
I have tracked a few dozen game dated cards, An index of these cards can be found here.
Sources and Links
Phungo Index of Game Dated Cards
SABR's Baseball Cards Research Committee 
Reminiscent of the Howard-Patek pic that went around on Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevinkaduk/status/803972259283169280
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Great post! I just showed it to my wife and she said absolutely-no-way is the big guy that much bigger than the little one! I explained the actual height/weight but she’s sticking with “photo shopped”.
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We had the exact same conversation in the Phungo household. Lots o debate on that photo.
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