1966 Topps #267 Joe Sparma
About Joe Sparma
Sparma's 1966 Topps card, #267 in the third series, arrived during a rough season in his early Tigers career: a spring-training finger injury and lingering control trouble left him 2-7 with a 5.30 ERA over 29 games, and he failed to finish a single start that year.
Joe Sparma was a hard-throwing right-handed pitcher who spent parts of seven big-league seasons, six of them with the Detroit Tigers, after signing with Detroit as an amateur free agent in 1963. A two-way star at Ohio State, he quarterbacked the Buckeyes under Woody Hayes before leaving school to pursue baseball, then debuted in the majors in May 1964. His fastball and overhand curve made him a rotation regular, and his best season came in 1967, when he went 16-9 with a 3.76 ERA and five shutouts. Command remained his lifelong obstacle, and it fueled a public feud with manager Mayo Smith in 1968. Sparma answered that tension with the biggest start of his career, a September 17, 1968 complete-game win over the New York Yankees that clinched Detroit's first pennant since 1945; he later pitched briefly in that year's World Series. Traded to the Montreal Expos after the 1969 season, he finished his playing days there in 1970. Sparma died in Columbus, Ohio in 1986 at age 44.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 172 | 2 | 26 | 90 | 32 | 11 | 8 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 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: #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 #267 card?
It is card #267 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Joe Sparma 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.