1966 Topps #397 Bill White
About Bill White
The series-5 #397 is White's first Topps card as a Phillie, following the October 1965 trade that sent him east with Dick Groat and Bob Uecker. He answered the move with a strong year: .276 with 22 home runs, 103 RBIs and 85 runs in 159 games, a seventh consecutive Gold Glove at first base, and 23rd place in National League MVP voting. It was the last such year he would have. That offseason he tore his right Achilles tendon while playing paddleball, an injury that ended his run as an everyday star and shadowed the rest of his time in Philadelphia.
Bill White was a left-handed-hitting, left-handed-throwing first baseman who played 13 major-league seasons for the Giants, Cardinals and Phillies, batting .286 with 202 home runs and 870 RBIs. His family joined the Black migration north to Warren, Ohio when he was three, and his grandmother raised him there while his mother worked. He chose Hiram College for its pre-med program, then signed with the Giants in 1953 after asking Leo Durocher for a $2,500 bonus so he could pay for school. He homered in his first big-league at-bat on May 7, 1956, lost 1957 to the Army, and after a March 1959 trade to St. Louis became one of the National League's best all-around players: seven straight Gold Gloves from 1960 through 1966, eight All-Star selections, career highs across the board in 1963, and a World Series ring with the 1964 Cardinals. He also spoke out, criticizing a 1961 St. Petersburg civic breakfast that invited only white players. He later called Yankees games for 18 seasons and served as National League president from 1989 to 1994, the first Black president of a major sports league. The Cardinals elected him to their team Hall of Fame in 2020, and in 2026 the National Baseball Hall of Fame gave him its Buck O'Neil Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Baseball Almanac (3)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 262 | 2 | 31 | 134 | 58 | 22 | 5 | 10 | 0 |
| SGC | 12 | 0 | 2 | 8 | 2 | 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. Where SGC registers no separate row for a variation state, its slabs of that card are listed under the base state.
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #397 card?
It is card #397 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill White of the Philadelphia Phillies.
How many cards are in the 1966 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 613 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 598 with no gaps and no number used twice, and 14 cards carry catalogued print variations - five checklists, the trade and sold statement backs, the three-state #43 Don Landrum, three team-card dot pairs and the #161 Jerry Lumpe white streak - that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, 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.