1961 Topps #166 Danny Kravitz
About Danny Kravitz
After the 1960 season the Kansas City Athletics sold Kravitz's contract to the Cincinnati Reds, which is how a catcher who never played an inning for Cincinnati ended up on a Reds card. No. 166 belongs to the set's second print series. His last big-league game had already come and gone with Kansas City on September 18, 1960. Kravitz spent 1961 and two more seasons in the minors without another call to the majors, then retired and went home to Pennsylvania.
Danny Kravitz was a left-handed-hitting catcher born December 21, 1930, in Lopez, Pennsylvania, the youngest of nine children of a Russian-born coal miner and his Austrian-born wife. Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates after a 1949 tryout camp in Greenville, Alabama, he played the outfield for three minor-league seasons before service with the Marines kept him out of baseball in 1952 and 1953. Branch Rickey moved him behind the plate at Pirates camp in the spring of 1954, and he reached the majors on April 17, 1956, starting Pittsburgh's opener at the Polo Grounds. Less than a month later he beat the Philadelphia Phillies with a ninth-inning walk-off grand slam, his first big-league home run, erasing a 5-2 deficit. He stayed a reserve catcher through 1959 and into 1960, then a June 1, 1960 trade sent him to the Kansas City Athletics for Hank Foiles, so he missed the Pirates' 1960 World Series title. A catching platoon there gave him the busiest stretch of his career. Sold to the Cincinnati Reds after the season, he never appeared in another major-league game, closing a five-year career with a .236 average, 10 home runs and 54 RBI in 215 games. He played three more minor-league seasons, retired after 1963, and died June 19, 2013, in Danville, Pennsylvania, at 82.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 391 | 0 | 35 | 191 | 128 | 22 | 10 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 18 | 0 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. PSA counts are straight grades only; PSA half grades (PSA 1.5 among them) and qualified slabs are not included. SGC half grades fold down (8.5→8). Slabs of the two cards printed #463 are joined by description, never by number alone.
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Team card: #249 Cincinnati Reds Team
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #166 card?
It is card #166 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Danny Kravitz of the Cincinnati Reds.
How many cards are in the 1961 Topps Baseball set?
587 cards, tracked as 596 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 589, but #426, #587 and #588 were never issued and two different cards were printed #463 - Jack Fisher and the Milwaukee Braves Team card, catalogued 463b - and eight cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, The Topps Archives, Baseball-Reference, the SABR BioProject and the National Baseball Hall of Fame, PSA & SGC population reports. Card data compiled and maintained by T206Cards.com. Page last updated 2026-10-05.