1965 Topps #359 Ken Johnson
About Ken Johnson
Card #359 arrived in the fifth series of 1965 carrying the Astros name Houston adopted that year, and it looks back on the season that put Ken Johnson in the record books. He made 35 starts in 1964, worked 218 innings and went 11-16 with a 3.63 ERA for a ninth-place team. On April 23 he held Cincinnati hitless for nine innings and lost 1-0: his own wild throw on a Pete Rose bunt put the run on base, and a rare error by Nellie Fox on Vada Pinson's grounder brought it home. Ten days earlier he had beaten the Reds on Opening Day, a game he dedicated to his road roommate and closest friend Jim Umbricht, dead of cancer at 33 five days before.
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 | 252 | 2 | 40 | 132 | 53 | 15 | 9 | 1 | 0 |
| SGC | 8 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 4 | 0 | 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. The two checklist variations, #79 and #508, are listed under the wording PSA uses for each state.
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Related cards
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- #16 Houston 1965 Rookie Stars
- #31 Mike White
- #48 Claude Raymond
- #80 Turk Farrell
- #109 Walt Bond
- #164 Al Spangler
- #175 Bob Aspromonte
- #179 Hal Woodeshick
- #212 Ron Brand
- #240 Bob Bruce
- #257 Jim Wynn
- #274 Lum Harris
- #292 Larry Yellen
- #321 Rusty Staub
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #359 card?
It is card #359 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ken Johnson of the Houston Astros.
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.