1966 Topps #253 Don Wert
About Don Wert
Wert's 1966 card, #253 from the third series, matched up with the best hitting year of his career: a .268 average and 70 RBIs, both career highs, over 150 games, with 150 hits and 20 doubles. He committed only 11 errors at third base, a .972 mark. The season around him was grim, as Detroit went through three managers and lost two of them: Charlie Dressen suffered a second heart attack in May and died in August, and interim manager Bob Swift was hospitalized in July with lung cancer and died in October, leaving Frank Skaff to finish the year. This number also turns up in the Venezuelan printing.
Don Wert was a right-handed third baseman who spent nine major league seasons, eight of them at Detroit's hot corner. Born in Strasburg, Pennsylvania, in 1938, he starred in three sports at Solanco High School, was signed by the Tigers out of Lancaster County in 1958 for $5,000, and climbed through Valdosta, Durham, Denver and Syracuse before debuting in Detroit in May 1963 at age 24. He took over as the Tigers' regular third baseman the next spring and held the job through 1970. Never a big bat, he built his reputation on defense, and his own managers and rival ones alike measured him against Brooks Robinson and Clete Boyer. He was named to the American League All-Star team in 1968 and won a World Series ring with Detroit that October. The Tigers traded him to Washington in October 1970 in the eight-player deal that also sent Denny McLain east; the Senators released him in June 1971 and his playing career ended at 32. Wert finished with 929 hits, 77 home runs, 366 RBIs and a .242 average across 1,110 games, 1,043 of them at third base. He returned to eastern Pennsylvania to farm and to coach baseball part-time at Franklin and Marshall College, and died there in 2024 at 86.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 283 | 5 | 37 | 168 | 46 | 13 | 7 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 11 | 0 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 1 | 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: #583 Detroit Tigers
More Detroit Tigers cards:
- #20 Willie Horton
- #38 Ron Nischwitz
- #58 Dave Wickersham
- #81 Ray Oyler
- #98 Don Demeter
- #113 Hank Aguirre
- #145 Bill Freehan
- #161 Jerry Lumpe
- #187 Chuck Dressen
- #198 Mickey Stanley
- #209 Tigers 1966 Rookie Stars
- #218 American League 1965 Home Run Leaders
- #220 American League 1965 RBI Leaders
- #226 American League 1965 Strikeout Leaders
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #253 card?
It is card #253 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Don Wert of the Detroit Tigers.
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.