1997 Pinnacle X-Press Swing for the Fences Upgrade

The 90s had a lot of fun gimmicky contests to get cards, and 97 Pinnacle X-Press was no exception! In fact, it may have been one of the more “tricky” contests to play.

In order to participate, you’d have to pull the “base” Swing for the Fences insert of the NL or AL home run king of that year, then collect a base “home runs” card AND booster points cards. The home runs card and booster points cards needed to add up to the number of home runs the home run king hit. You could add up as many booster points cards as needed … some were even negative numbers.

The first 1,000 winners would get an autographed Andruw Jones, and the rest of the winners would get a pack of 10 cards – each card having a gold foil stamped center logo, hence the name Swing for the Fences “upgrade”.

Curiously enough, from what I’ve read, there could have been as many as 3,000 ten card packs produced. With 60 cards in the set, that would equate to as many as 500 made for each player. The sales data on eBay doesn’t seem to agree with this, given that Jose for example has only had one sale over the past three years.

In any event, it is definitely a parallel that has flown under the radar for years, and its gimmicky nature embodies one of the many reasons I love collecting this time period of the hobby.