1966 Topps #566 Mike Cuellar
About Mike Cuellar
Moved into Houston's starting rotation in late April 1966, Cuellar won his first six decisions and threw a career-high 15 strikeouts against St. Louis in June. He mixed a screwball he had leaned on for years with a new curveball learned from pitching coach Gordon Jones, and in late August he threw his first major-league shutout, a 2-0 win over Pittsburgh. He finished 12-10 with a 2.22 ERA, second in the National League only to Sandy Koufax. His 1966 Topps card, #566, falls in the high-number seventh series and has long carried a high-number reputation among collectors.
Miguel Angel Cuellar Santana, a Cuban left-hander, spent years working through Cincinnati, Detroit, Cleveland and St. Louis farm systems before a screwball, picked up on a teammate's advice, turned his career around in 1964. Traded to Houston in mid-1965, he grew into a durable starter, then reached stardom after a December 1968 trade sent him to Baltimore. With the Orioles he won 20 or more games four times, shared the 1969 American League Cy Young Award with Denny McLain, and helped Baltimore capture three straight pennants and the 1970 World Series title. Teammates called him Crazy Horse for an elaborate set of pregame and in-game superstitions he never varied. He finished his career with the California Angels in 1977 and is not a Hall of Fame inductee.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 381 | 3 | 39 | 163 | 107 | 44 | 14 | 11 | 0 |
| SGC | 39 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 11 | 11 | 5 | 3 | 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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- #86 John Bateman
- #106 Rusty Staub
- #122 Joe Gaines
- #147 Lum Harris
- #162 Lee Maye
- #174 Ron Taylor
- #195 Joe Morgan
- #228 Larry Dierker
- #244 Astros 1966 Rookie Stars
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #566 card?
It is card #566 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Mike Cuellar of the Houston Astros.
Why is #566 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.