You probably know Aaron Judge by now. After all, he’s tied for the MLB lead with 15 home runs, is the 6-foot-7 young face of the New York Yankees and on the cover of Sports Illustrated.
But in an alternate reality — and an alternate reality with baseball cards — none of this would have happened. He’d be playing somewhere else.
You probably didn’t know — this collector didn’t — that Judge was once a draft pick of the Oakland A’s, the Moneyballing squad that ultimately sends all of its star players to the Yankees anyway and gets its playoff hopes dashed by Yankees stars and unlikely plays that will never, ever go away. (They even start off movies made about the A’s.)