1966 Topps #340 Dean Chance
About Dean Chance
Card #340 is the first Chance card printed under the California Angels name, the club having dropped Los Angeles from its title in 1965. The fourth-series issue reports that 1965 season: 15-10 with a 3.15 ERA, 164 strikeouts and 225 innings over 36 games for a 75-87 club that finished seventh in its last year as a tenant at Dodger Stadium. Topps ran #340 again in its 1966 Venezuelan parallel, the first 370 numbers reprinted on darker, thinner stock.
Wilmer Dean Chance signed with the Baltimore Orioles out of Northwestern High School in West Salem, Ohio, in 1959 for a $30,000 bonus, and reached the majors with the expansion Los Angeles Angels, who acquired him from Washington the same day the Senators drafted him in December 1960. He threw from a three-quarters slot behind a windup that turned his back to the hitter, and he never looked in at the plate once he had the sign. Chance anchored the Angels' rotation through 1966 and Minnesota's from 1967, and was an All-Star in both 1964 and 1967. His Cy Young Award came in 1964, when he led the American League in wins, earned run average, innings, complete games and shutouts and the award still covered all of baseball. He took The Sporting News Comeback Player of the Year prize in 1967, then finished up with Cleveland, the Mets and Detroit, retiring after 1971 at 128-115 with a 2.92 ERA and 1,534 strikeouts. He was a famously helpless hitter, a career .066 with 420 strikeouts in 662 at-bats. The Angels put him in their team Hall of Fame in 2015, the year he died at his home in Wooster, Ohio, the farm town where he was born.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 199 | 2 | 30 | 101 | 41 | 17 | 4 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 7 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 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.
Find this card
Search T206 Cards Shop 1966 Topps cards Live auctions Buy It Now on eBay Sold prices
As an eBay Partner Network affiliate, T206Cards.com may earn from qualifying purchases.
Related cards
Team card: #131 California Angels
More California Angels cards:
- #5 Jim Fregosi
- #23 Jack Sanford
- #42 Aubrey Gatewood
- #62 Merritt Ranew
- #83 Albie Pearson
- #102 Ed Kirkpatrick
- #152 Frank Malzone
- #155 Marcelino Lopez
- #173 Al Spangler
- #192 Vic Power
- #213 Fred Newman
- #249 Bill Rigney
- #263 Tom Egan
- #280 Bobby Knoop
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #340 card?
It is card #340 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Dean Chance of the California Angels.
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.