1966 Topps #21 Don Nottebart
About Don Nottebart
Houston sent him to its Oklahoma City farm club after 1965, and Cincinnati took him in the Rule 5 draft. He was penciled in for the fifth starter's job until the Reds traded for Milt Pappas ten days later; after one last start in June, he never started another big-league game. Relief suited him: 59 appearances, a personal high, plus 111 innings, 11 saves and a 5-4 record with a 3.07 ERA, finishing in the National League's top ten in both games pitched and saves. Three wins and five saves in under three weeks drove an 18-4 Reds surge in midsummer. Card #21 comes from the 1966 set's first series and still pictures him as an Astro, the uniform he wore before the draft.
Don Nottebart was a right-handed pitcher from West Newton, Massachusetts, who worked 296 major league games over nine seasons between 1960 and 1969 for the Milwaukee Braves, Houston Colt .45s and Astros, Cincinnati Reds, New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs. He grew up idolizing Warren Spahn and signed with the Braves out of Lexington High School in 1954 for that reason, then spent seven years in a farm system too deep to make room for him, winning 18 games in four of five seasons on the way up. A multi-player swap in November 1962 sent him to Houston, where on May 17, 1963 he threw the first no-hitter in franchise history, beating the Philadelphia Phillies 4-1 at Colt Stadium despite an unearned run. That season, 11-8 with a 3.17 ERA, was his best. Cincinnati took him in the 1965 Rule 5 draft and turned him into a full-time reliever, and after a lost 1968 in the minors he finished up in 1969 with the Yankees and Cubs. His career line reads 36-51, 3.65, with 21 saves and 525 strikeouts. He died in 2007 in Cypress, Texas.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 315 | 3 | 45 | 170 | 54 | 23 | 13 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 6 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 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
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- #122 Joe Gaines
- #147 Lum Harris
- #162 Lee Maye
- #174 Ron Taylor
- #195 Joe Morgan
- #228 Larry Dierker
- #244 Astros 1966 Rookie Stars
- #258 Dave Giusti
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #21 card?
It is card #21 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Nottebart of the Houston Astros.
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.