1964 Topps #158 Ken Johnson
About Ken Johnson
This second-series card, #158, is the last Topps issue to picture Ken Johnson under the Colt .45s name, and it follows the sharpest year he ever pitched. In 1963 he threw 224 innings across 37 games and posted a 2.65 ERA, the lowest of his career and the tenth lowest in the National League. His won-lost record was 11-17, which is a fair measure of the support a ninth-place, 66-96 Houston club could hand a starter. Collectors who file him under one famous afternoon tend to be surprised by this line: for a full season he pitched as well as almost anyone in the league and had nothing in the standings to show for it.
Ken Johnson (Kenneth Travis Johnson), born June 16, 1933, in West Palm Beach, Florida, was a 6-foot-4 right-handed pitcher who spent 13 major-league seasons, 1958 through 1970, with seven clubs: the Kansas City Athletics, Cincinnati Reds, Houston Colt .45s/Astros, Milwaukee/Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, Chicago Cubs, and Montreal Expos. Naturally left-handed, he threw right-handed because a right-handed glove was the only one his father could find for him as a boy. He debuted for Kansas City on September 13, 1958, and spent almost a decade in the Philadelphia/Kansas City organization before a mid-1961 move to Cincinnati and a new knuckleball finally settled him as a big-league starter. He is remembered as the only pitcher in major-league history to lose a complete-game, nine-inning no-hitter, a 1-0 defeat to Cincinnati on April 23, 1964, while pitching for Houston. Johnson also appeared in the 1961 World Series for the pennant-winning Reds. He finished 91-106 with a 3.46 ERA, 50 complete games and 1,042 strikeouts over 1,737 1/3 innings, and died November 21, 2015, in Pineville, Louisiana.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · SABR Games Project · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 282 | 0 | 49 | 152 | 54 | 15 | 9 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 12 | 0 | 1 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 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
- #179 Carl Warwick
- #205 Nellie Fox
- #226 Colts 1964 Rookie Stars
- #241 Jim Owens
- #256 Johnny Weekly
- #282 Bob Bruce
- #298 Harry Craft
- #321 Bob Lillis
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1964 Topps #158 card?
It is card #158 of the 587-card 1964 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ken Johnson of the Houston Colt .45's.
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.