1965 Topps #502 Don Cardwell
About Don Cardwell
The season behind this card barely happened. The arm trouble that began in 1963 kept Cardwell off the mound until September 1964, and he finished the year with four appearances for the Pirates, going 1-2 with a 2.79 ERA and ten strikeouts over 19.1 innings, the lightest workload of any season in his career. Card #502 is his series-6 base issue.
Don Cardwell was a 6-foot-4 right-hander from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who signed with the Philadelphia Phillies as an amateur free agent in 1954 and pitched fourteen major league seasons, 1957 through 1970, for the Phillies, Chicago Cubs, Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets and Atlanta Braves. His signature day came at Wrigley Field on May 15, 1960, two days after a trade delivered him to Chicago: in the second game of a doubleheader he no-hit St. Louis 4-0, walking Alex Grammas with one out in the first inning and then retiring the next 26 batters, the first no-hitter ever thrown by a pitcher in his first start with a new team. He was one of the better hitting pitchers of his era, with 15 career home runs, and he finished in New York as a member of the Mets club that won the 1969 World Series. Cardwell went 102-138 with a 3.92 ERA and 1,211 strikeouts in 410 games. He died of Pick's disease in his hometown in January 2008.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 262 | 1 | 48 | 122 | 61 | 19 | 6 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 13 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 4 | 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. 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: #209 Pittsburgh Pirates
More Pittsburgh Pirates cards:
- #2 National League 1964 Batting Leaders
- #12 National League 1964 Strikeout Leaders
- #25 Al McBean
- #54 Joe Gibbon
- #69 Bill Virdon
- #95 Bill Mazeroski
- #121 Gene Alley
- #143 Pirates 1965 Rookie Stars
- #160 Bob Clemente
- #195 Bob Veale
- #218 Dick Schofield
- #232 Steve Blass
- #246 Tom Butters
- #265 Jim Pagliaroni
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #502 card?
It is card #502 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Cardwell of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
How many cards are in the 1965 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 600 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps and no printed-number collisions, and two checklist cards - #79 and #508 - carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately.
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.