1964 Topps #298 Harry Craft
About this card
This is one of the twenty manager cards in the 1964 Topps set, one for each franchise. Nineteen are printed Manager; #486 Bob Kennedy is printed Head Coach because the Cubs were still running their College of Coaches.
About Harry Craft
Craft's 1964 Topps #298, from the fourth series, shows him with the Colt .45s in what became his last season managing in the majors. Houston won at Crosley Field on Opening Day and briefly stood alone in first, the only time it happened in the club's three Colt .45s years, and on April 23 Ken Johnson no-hit Cincinnati and lost 1-0, the first nine-inning complete-game no-hitter ever lost. Craft was 61-88 when the club let him go on September 19 and gave coach Lum Harris the final 13 games. Houston finished 66-96 and ninth again, closing Colt Stadium before the Astrodome and the Astros name arrived in 1965.
Harry Francis Craft (1915-1995) was a center fielder who earned his keep with his glove and a manager who ran Houston's first big-league club. He broke in with the Cincinnati Reds in September 1937, held center field as the Reds won National League pennants in 1939 and 1940, started all four games of the 1939 World Series sweep by the Yankees, and made a single pinch-hitting appearance in the 1940 Series that Cincinnati took from Detroit in seven games. He hit for the cycle in a 23-2 rout of Brooklyn on June 8, 1940, but his bat kept fading, and a July 1942 waiver deal to the Yankees ended his major-league playing days at 27; he served in the Navy during the war and finished as a player with Kansas City in the minors in 1948. Managing went better. He was Mickey Mantle's first professional manager, at Independence in 1949 and Joplin in 1950, then ran the Kansas City Athletics from August 1957 through 1959, took a turn as head coach in the Cubs' 1961 College of Coaches, and opened the Houston Colt .45s in 1962. He later scouted and worked in player development for the Orioles, Giants and Yankees before retiring in 1991. Cooperstown never called, but the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame elected him in 1963.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 270 | 4 | 49 | 138 | 51 | 16 | 6 | 5 | 1 |
| SGC | 9 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Graded population — a scarcity guide, not a price. Data as of 2026-09-04. Half grades fold down for both graders (8.5→8); PSA qualified slabs (OC, ST, PD, MC and the like) are not counted.
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Related cards
More Houston Colt .45's cards:
- #23 Chris Zachary
- #38 Jim Wynn
- #56 Hal Brown
- #109 Rusty Staub
- #121 Pete Runnels
- #142 John Bateman
- #158 Ken Johnson
- #179 Carl Warwick
- #205 Nellie Fox
- #226 Colts 1964 Rookie Stars
- #241 Jim Owens
- #256 Johnny Weekly
- #282 Bob Bruce
- #321 Bob Lillis
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #298 card?
It is card #298 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Harry Craft of the Houston Colt .45's. This is one of the twenty manager cards in the 1964 Topps set, one for each franchise. Nineteen are printed Manager; #486 Bob Kennedy is printed Head Coach because the Cubs were still running their College of Coaches.
How many cards are in the 1964 Topps Baseball set?
587 cards, tracked as 589 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 587 with no gaps, and no number carries two different cards; two cards - #4, the A.L. Pitching Leaders, and #517, the seventh-series checklist - carry a catalogued back variation that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, The Topps Archives, Baseball Almanac, 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 2026-10-11.