1961 Topps #496 Ken MacKenzie
About Ken MacKenzie
1961 Topps #496 puts MacKenzie in a Milwaukee Braves cap, a card out of the set's sixth print series. A year earlier, Topps had already pictured him. The season behind it was a thin one: five appearances for Milwaukee, an 0-1 record and a 5.14 ERA across seven innings, with a Braves bullpen built around Don McMahon and Don Nottebart leaving a young lefty almost nowhere to work. Milwaukee sold his contract to the expansion Mets on October 11, 1961, the day after the expansion draft, closing the book on his Braves years.
Kenneth Purvis MacKenzie, born March 10, 1934 in Gore Bay, Ontario, was a Canadian left-hander who spent parts of six major league seasons with the Milwaukee Braves, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, San Francisco Giants and Houston Astros between 1960 and 1965. A member of Yale's class of 1956, he captained the baseball team and took second-team All-Ivy honors in hockey before Milwaukee signed him as an amateur free agent on September 4, 1956; the Braves converted him into a reliever in 1959. He is best remembered as an original Met, New York having bought his contract on October 11, 1961, the day after the expansion draft. Across 129 games, all but one of them in relief, he went 8-10 with a 4.80 ERA, 142 strikeouts and five saves in 208.1 innings, and all eight of those wins came in a Mets uniform. On July 23, 1965 he, Claude Raymond and Ron Taylor became the first three Canadians to pitch for one club in the same game. He came back to Yale as a freshman coach in 1967, ran the varsity baseball program from 1969 through 1978, then worked in the alumni office until retiring in 1984. He died December 14, 2023 at his home in Guilford, Connecticut, at 89.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 301 | 0 | 19 | 131 | 104 | 22 | 16 | 9 | 0 |
| SGC | 18 | 0 | 3 | 6 | 7 | 1 | 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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Related cards
Team card: #463b Milwaukee Braves Team
More Milwaukee Braves cards:
- #29 Don Nottebart
- #61 Ron Piche
- #73 Al Spangler
- #84 Lee Maye
- #89 Billy Martin
- #105 Carl Willey
- #120 Ed Mathews
- #137 Chuck Dressen
- #145 Bob Buhl
- #164 Felix Mantilla
- #183 Andre Rodgers
- #200 Warren Spahn
- #217 Mel Roach
- #245 Joe Adcock
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1961 Topps #496 card?
It is card #496 of the 587-card 1961 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ken MacKenzie of the Milwaukee Braves.
Why is #496 harder to find?
It is from the sixth print series (cards 447-522) - noticeably tougher than the first five, easier than the true highs.
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.