1965 Topps #254 Roland Sheldon
About Roland Sheldon
Card #254 belongs to the third series, and it pictures a Yankee who would not stay one. Sheldon opened the season with three relief appearances, 6 1/3 innings in all, and then, when catcher Elston Howard needed elbow surgery, New York sent him and Johnny Blanchard to the Kansas City Athletics on May 3 for catcher Doc Edwards. The deal handed him the steady work he had never had in New York: 29 starts, a 10-8 record and a 3.95 ERA for a last-place club that lost 103 games. Pitching in turn, he said, put his control and his rhythm back where they belonged.
Roland "Rollie" Sheldon was a 6-foot-4 right-handed pitcher born in Putnam, Connecticut, on December 17, 1936. He grew up a Red Sox fan but, after Air Force service and stops at Texas A&M and the University of Connecticut, signed with the Yankees in June 1960. One Class D season later - 15-1 at Auburn of the New York-Penn League - he made New York out of spring training in 1961 and became a rotation starter on back-to-back pennant winners. A sophomore slump sent him to Triple-A Richmond for a year and a half before he came back in June 1964 and worked hitless relief in two games of that year's World Series. A May 1965 trade sent him to the Kansas City Athletics, where he finally got a regular turn in the rotation, and a June 1966 trade moved him on to the Boston Red Sox. He finished 38-36 with a 4.09 ERA over five big-league seasons, then pitched four more years in the high minors before settling in Lee's Summit, Missouri, and working in insurance.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 261 | 1 | 26 | 127 | 63 | 21 | 11 | 12 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 6 | 2 | 1 | 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1965 Topps #254 card?
It is card #254 of the 598-card 1965 Topps Baseball set, picturing Roland Sheldon of the New York Yankees.
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.