1966 Topps #531 Joe Cunningham
About Joe Cunningham
The last Topps card of Cunningham's career is #531: it falls in the seventh series, among the high numbers. It reports 1965, when he was a part-time first baseman and pinch-hitter - 37 pinch-hitting appearances - for Gil Hodges' eighth-place, 70-92 Senators, batting .229 with 3 home runs and 20 RBI in 95 games while drawing 46 walks in 201 at-bats. The last of those homers, on August 14, was a game-winning pinch-hit three-run shot off Don Larsen in extra innings, the final home run of his career. He started three of Washington's first four games in 1966, went 1-for-8, and was released.
Joe Cunningham was a left-handed-hitting first baseman and outfielder who played twelve major-league seasons (1954, 1956-1966) for the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago White Sox and Washington Senators. Signed by the Cardinals out of Lodi High School in New Jersey in 1949, he lost two minor-league years to the Army. He bought an outfielder's glove and learned right field in 1957, after Stan Musial had moved back to first base, and broke out in 1959: a .345 average, second in the National League to Hank Aaron, a league-leading .453 on-base percentage, and selection to both All-Star Games played that summer, the only All-Star honors of his career. The press began calling him Smokey Joe in 1958. He finished with 980 hits, 64 home runs, 436 RBI, a .291 average and a .403 on-base percentage that ranks 48th all time among players with at least 3,000 plate appearances. Cunningham later managed Cardinals farm clubs and spent two decades in the team's front office, building its group and season ticket departments and introducing the mascot Fredbird. He entered the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame in 2012 and the St. Louis Sports Hall of Fame in 2015, and died March 25, 2021, at 89.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 319 | 5 | 53 | 144 | 74 | 26 | 12 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 16 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 5 | 2 | 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: #194 Washington Senators
More Washington Senators cards:
- #11 Senators 1966 Rookie Stars
- #29 Mike Brumley
- #46 Howie Koplitz
- #69 Ken Hamlin
- #77 Johnny Orsino
- #95 Pete Richert
- #118 Mike McCormick
- #149 Dick Nen
- #165 Don Lock
- #211 Frank Kreutzer
- #251 Ed Brinkman
- #274 Buster Narum
- #294 Steve Ridzik
- #312 Bob Saverine
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #531 card?
It is card #531 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Joe Cunningham of the Washington Senators.
Why is #531 harder to find?
It is a high number card from the seventh and last print series, #523-598 - the scarce end of the set. Forty-three of its 76 cards are short prints, so scarcity is stated for the series as a whole.
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.