1966 Topps #196 Don Pavletich
About Don Pavletich
Pavletich's power year: 83 games, a .294 average and career bests of 12 home runs and 38 RBIs. Extra innings were his specialty against the Cubs. On May 14 he doubled off Ferguson Jenkins in the 14th to win a game, and on July 19 he beat Jenkins again with a home run over the left-field wall in the 18th. By September 20 Chicago had seen enough and walked him intentionally in the 13th. He broke a thumb on July 20 and barely missed a game. Card #196 comes from the second series.
Donald Stephen Pavletich was born in Milwaukee on July 13, 1938, and grew up in the suburb of West Allis. He was of Croatian descent, all four grandparents having come over from Croatia. He hit .405 across four years at Nathan Hale High School and starred in American Legion and semipro ball before the Reds signed him in August 1956 for a reported $35,000 bonus. The bonus rule kept him on the big-league roster, and he debuted at 18 on April 20, 1957, pinch-hitting at Milwaukee's County Stadium. Weeks later he enlisted in the Army, serving as a medic in Heilbronn, Germany, until February 1959. He rebuilt his career at Topeka and Indianapolis, was voted a Triple-A All-Star in 1961, and finally collected his first big-league hit on April 29, 1962, five years after his debut. He spent most of the 1960s in Cincinnati behind Johnny Edwards and then Johnny Bench, went to the White Sox after 1968 and to Boston after 1969, and closed out at .254 with 46 home runs and 193 RBIs in 536 games over twelve seasons. Released by the Brewers in the spring of 1972, he sold investment real estate and later worked as a Milwaukee loan officer. He died in 2020 at 81.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 167 | 3 | 16 | 86 | 32 | 15 | 9 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 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: #59 Cincinnati Reds
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #196 card?
It is card #196 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Pavletich of the Cincinnati Reds.
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.