1965 Topps #526 Athletics Rookie Stars - Rene Lachemann / Johnny Odom / Skip Lockwood / Jim Hunter
On this card: Rene Lachemann, Johnny Odom, Skip Lockwood, Jim Hunter
This Athletics Rookie Stars card is also the rookie card of Jim (Catfish) Hunter, whose name is printed on the back as "Tim."
Uncorrected error: Back refers to Jim (Catfish) Hunter as "Tim"
About this card
This is one of the 55 Rookie Stars cards in the 1965 Topps set, each picturing two to four young players - 126 players in all - under a team banner, except #577 and #581, which carry American League and National League banners over players from three clubs. Joe Morgan (#16), Steve Carlton (#477), Jim (Catfish) Hunter (#526) and Tony Perez (#581) make their Topps debuts on these cards.
The story on this card
Lachemann's rookie card is 1965 Topps #526, a four-player Athletics Rookie Stars card from the seventh series of high numbers, inside the set's short-print zone, shared with Johnny Odom, Skip Lockwood and Jim Hunter. It is a key card of the set because it is also the rookie card of Hunter, the Hall of Famer of the group, and because the back garbles his name as "Tim." Lachemann earned his place on it: catching coach Gabby Hartnett raved about his arm in camp, and he caught 75 of his 92 games for a 59-103 club, hitting .227 with 9 home runs, 29 RBIs and 20 runs scored. Kansas City pitchers said they liked throwing to him and that he called a good game. Kansas City Athletics catcher who debuted on his twentieth birthday and hit .227 as a 1965 rookie, then spent a half century more in the game as a coach and as manager of four major league clubs.
1965 Topps #526 is a Kansas City Athletics Rookie Stars card, and it is the one collectors chase: Odom shares it with Rene Lachemann, Skip Lockwood and Jim Hunter, making it the rookie card of both Odom and the future Hall of Famer Hunter. Odom spent all of 1965 at Lewiston in the Class A Northwest League, going 11-14 with a 4.27 ERA and leading the league with 29 starts and 198 innings. A hard-throwing right-hander out of Macon, Georgia, Blue Moon Odom won 84 big-league games, made two All-Star teams, and pitched for all three of Oakland's championship clubs from 1972 through 1974.
Lockwood's first Topps card is 1965 #526, the four-player Athletics Rookie Stars panel shared with Rene Lachemann, Johnny Odom and Jim Hunter. It is a genuine high number from the seventh and final series, inside the short-print zone, and a key rookie card of the set thanks to Hunter - whose first name the back gets wrong, printing Tim rather than Jim. Lockwood was on a big-league roster that year only because his $135,000 bonus required it: 42 games, just seven of them at third base, 33 at-bats, .121 with four singles and no runs batted in. A bonus-baby third baseman who could not hit, Skip Lockwood remade himself as a pitcher and became the Mets bullpen anchor of the late 1970s, saving 19 games in 1976 and 20 in 1977.
Card 526 is a shared Athletics Rookie Stars slot in the seventh series, a high number inside the short-print zone, and it is Hunter's rookie card; Rene Lachemann, Johnny Odom and Skip Lockwood ride the front with him, and the back calls him Tim rather than Jim. He had reached Kansas City that May at 19, straight out of high school with no minor-league record behind him, and his first big-league win came at Fenway Park on July 27. Catfish Hunter was the durable right-hander who anchored Oakland's three-peat champion Athletics, threw a 1968 perfect game, won the 1974 AL Cy Young Award, then became baseball's first big-money free agent with the Yankees before his 1987 Hall of Fame induction.
Sources: Wikipedia (Rene Lachemann) · Wikipedia (Blue Moon Odom) · Wikipedia (Skip Lockwood) · Wikipedia (Catfish Hunter) · SABR BioProject (Rene Lachemann) · SABR BioProject (Blue Moon Odom) · SABR BioProject (Skip Lockwood) · SABR BioProject (Catfish Hunter)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 3,633 | 7 | 102 | 689 | 818 | 728 | 493 | 790 | 6 |
| SGC | 1,118 | 0 | 14 | 90 | 194 | 237 | 264 | 311 | 8 |
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. The two checklist variations, #79 and #508, are listed under the wording PSA uses for each state.
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Related cards
Team card: #151 Kansas City Athletics
More Kansas City Athletics cards:
- #35 Ed Charles
- #51 Billy Bryan
- #71 John O'Donoghue
- #87 Nelson Mathews
- #117 Wes Stock
- #168 Dick Green
- #197 Diego Segui
- #219 Bob Meyer
- #239 Doc Edwards
- #266 Bert Campaneris
- #286 Athletics 1965 Rookie Stars
- #311 Orlando Pena
- #333 Tommie Reynolds
- #365 Jim Gentile
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #526 card?
It is card #526 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Rene Lachemann, Johnny Odom, Skip Lockwood and Jim Hunter. This is one of the 55 Rookie Stars cards in the 1965 Topps set, each picturing two to four young players - 126 players in all - under a team banner, except #577 and #581, which carry American League and National League banners over players from three clubs. Joe Morgan (#16), Steve Carlton (#477), Jim (Catfish) Hunter (#526) and Tony Perez (#581) make their Topps debuts on these cards.
Is 1965 Topps #526 a rookie card?
Yes - #526 is a rookie card for every player pictured on it: Rene Lachemann, Johnny Odom, Skip Lockwood and Jim Hunter.
What are the key cards in the 1965 Topps set?
The #350 Mickey Mantle is the grail of the set. The other major keys are #250 Willie Mays, #300 Sandy Koufax, #170 Hank Aaron, #160 Roberto Clemente (printed "Bob" Clemente), #207 Pete Rose, #510 Ernie Banks and #460 Richie (Dick) Allen, plus four Hall of Fame rookies on Rookie Stars cards: #16 Joe Morgan, #477 Steve Carlton, #526 Jim (Catfish) Hunter and #581 Tony Perez. The short-printed cards inside #523-598 are the hardest to find.
Does 1965 Topps #526 have an error?
Back refers to Jim (Catfish) Hunter as "Tim". It was never corrected, so there is no variation to chase - every copy of #526 reads the same way.
Is 1965 Topps #526 a scarce card?
It is a high number card from the seventh and last series, #507-598. Unlike most 1960s Topps sets the 1965 highs are not scarce as a run - the premium sits on the short-printed cards inside #523-598. It is also a short-print zone card. Forty-four of the 76 cards in #523-598 were short-printed; #507-522 was not. The zone is stated as a range because the catalogs disagree on exactly which cards, so no single card is marked.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, 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.