1966 Topps #48 Paul Blair
About Paul Blair
Card #48 sits in the first series of the 1966 set, catching Blair still splitting center field with the left-handed hitting Russ Snyder. He lifted his average to .277 with six home runs and 33 RBI, and the Orioles, remade by the arrival of Frank Robinson, took the pennant and swept the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series. Blair supplied the only run of the 1-0 Game Three win with a homer off Claude Osteen, then robbed Jim Lefebvre of a tying home run in Game Four.
Paul Blair broke in with the Baltimore Orioles in September 1964 and spent thirteen seasons as their center fielder, anchoring the outfield of the club that won four American League pennants and two World Series titles between 1966 and 1970. Born in Cushing, Oklahoma, and raised in Los Angeles, he was signed by the Mets as a shortstop in 1961 and drafted away by Baltimore a year later. His instincts in center were the rarest thing about him: he played shallow on purpose and ran down the balls hit over his head, winning eight Gold Gloves, seven of them in a row from 1969 through 1975. He made two All-Star teams, in 1969 and 1973, and his most productive year came in 1969, when he hit .285 with 26 home runs, 76 RBI and 102 runs and became the first Oriole with 20 homers and 20 stolen bases in the same season. Traded to the New York Yankees in January 1977, he won two more championships as a reserve outfielder, then closed out his career with a short stop in Cincinnati and a last handful of games back in New York in 1980. His manager at Stockton hung the nickname Motormouth on him in 1963 for his nonstop talking. Baltimore elected him to the Orioles Hall of Fame in 1984.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 245 | 1 | 17 | 92 | 60 | 35 | 20 | 20 | 0 |
| SGC | 14 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 5 | 1 | 4 | 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: #348 Baltimore Orioles
More Baltimore Orioles cards:
- #14 Norm Siebern
- #27 Orioles 1966 Rookie Stars
- #90 Luis Aparicio
- #105 Milt Pappas
- #126 Jim Palmer
- #136 Woody Held
- #148 Bob Johnson
- #167 Boog Powell
- #193 Dave McNally
- #229 Hank Bauer
- #247 Carl Warwick
- #265 Stu Miller
- #291 Moe Drabowsky
- #310 Frank Robinson
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #48 card?
It is card #48 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Paul Blair of the Baltimore Orioles.
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.