1966 Topps #491 Dennis Bennett
About Dennis Bennett
Card #491 lands in the 1966 set's sixth series. Behind it is a 1965 season that opened on the disabled list. Bennett joined the Red Sox in early May, having promised the Boston writers a champagne party after his first win, and paid up when he topped the Kansas City Athletics at Fenway Park on May 31. He finished 5-7 with a 4.38 ERA in 34 games, 18 of them starts and 16 in relief, for a club that lost 100. The writers, unsatisfied, told him they would return the favor whenever he threw a shutout.
Dennis Bennett was a 6-foot-3 left-hander born in Oakland, California, on October 5, 1939, and raised in Yreka, a heavily wooded town near the Oregon line. He signed with the Philadelphia Phillies in 1958 for no bonus, spent four seasons in their farm system, and was called up from Triple-A Buffalo in May 1962. A car accident in Puerto Rico in January 1963, on the way back from a winter-league team picnic, killed the driver and threw Bennett through the windshield, breaking his left ankle, his pelvis and his left shoulder blade. He was back in the Phillies rotation by late June, but the shoulder never healed properly and steadily drained the fastball that had made him a prospect. Philadelphia traded him to the Boston Red Sox in November 1964, and he later pitched briefly for the New York Mets and the California Angels, making his last big-league appearance on September 29, 1968. Over seven major league seasons he went 43-47 with a 3.69 ERA and 572 strikeouts in 182 games, with 28 complete games and six shutouts across 863 innings. He pitched five more Pacific Coast League seasons, then settled in Klamath Falls, Oregon, where he ran bars and a restaurant until his death in 2012. He was not elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 278 | 8 | 53 | 148 | 47 | 12 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| SGC | 9 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 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.
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Related cards
Team card: #259 Boston Red Sox
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- #70 Carl Yastrzemski
- #93 Jim Lonborg
- #114 Jim Gosger
- #135 Dave Morehead
- #178 Bob Tillman
- #203 Jose Santiago
- #216 American League 1965 Batting Leaders
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #491 card?
It is card #491 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Dennis Bennett of the Boston Red Sox.
Why is #491 harder to find?
It is from the sixth print series, #447-522 - noticeably tougher than the first five. Nothing in #447-522 is short-printed.
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.