1966 Topps #184 Denis Menke
About Denis Menke
Card #184, a second-series card from 1966 Topps, is Menke's first as an Atlanta Brave, the franchise having moved south from Milwaukee that spring. He was the shortstop in the lineup for the first major-league game ever played in Atlanta on April 12, and he also became the first Atlanta Brave to make an error. The bat was slow to follow: he was hitting .214 on May 1 before a strong September lifted him to .251 with 15 home runs and 60 runs batted in. He played 106 games at shortstop and often batted leadoff.
Denis John Menke was born July 21, 1940, on a 480-acre farm outside Bancroft, Iowa, and signed with the Milwaukee Braves in May 1958 for a bonus reported at between $125,000 and $175,000, one of the largest of the years before the amateur draft. After Pacific Coast League Rookie of the Year honors at Vancouver in 1961, he debuted on April 14, 1962, and went on to play 13 major-league seasons for the Braves, Houston Astros and Cincinnati Reds, playing shortstop, second base, third base and first base. He batted .250 with 101 home runs and 606 runs batted in over 1,598 games, and was picked for the National League All-Star team as a shortstop in 1969 and 1970. In November 1971 Houston sent him to Cincinnati in the seven-player deal built around Joe Morgan, and he started at third base for the 1972 pennant winners, homering off Catfish Hunter in Game Five of the World Series and setting a Series record with 29 chances at third without an error. He played his last game July 10, 1974, managed in the minors, then coached in the majors for two decades, including eight seasons as the Philadelphia Phillies' hitting coach. He died December 1, 2020, in Tarpon Springs, Florida, at 80.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 153 | 4 | 30 | 62 | 32 | 9 | 9 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 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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Related cards
Team card: #326 Atlanta Braves
More Atlanta Braves cards:
- #10 Tony Cloninger
- #28 Phil Niekro
- #49 Woody Woodward
- #84 Braves 1966 Rookie Stars
- #96 Felipe Alou
- #130 Joe Torre
- #153 Rico Carty
- #168 Dan Osinski
- #200 Ed Mathews
- #215 National League 1965 Batting Leaders
- #223 National League 1965 Pitching Leaders
- #237 Billy O'Dell
- #252 Denver Lemaster
- #268 John Blanchard
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #184 card?
It is card #184 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Denis Menke of the Atlanta Braves.
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.