1966 Topps #28 Phil Niekro
Niekro's third Topps card and the first to picture him alone; his rookie card is the 1964 Rookie Stars #541.
About Phil Niekro
Card #28 comes from the first series of the 1966 set and is the first Topps card to picture Niekro by himself, after two Rookie Stars issues shared with other prospects. It is also his first card as an Atlanta Brave, printed the year the franchise finished its move from Milwaukee. The season it came out in was another split one: 4-3 with a 4.11 ERA across 28 appearances, every one in relief, with a June demotion to Triple-A Richmond before an August recall that ended his minor-league days.
Phil Niekro, the son of an Ohio coal miner who taught him the knuckleball in the backyard, signed with the Milwaukee Braves organization as a teenager and reached the majors on April 15, 1964, after spending the 1963 season in the Army. Knucksie, a nickname The Sporting News first put in print during his 1969 breakout, rode that one pitch through 24 major-league seasons to a 318-274 record, a 3.35 ERA and 3,342 strikeouts, nearly all of it with the Braves from 1964 through 1983 plus a 1987 return, with later stops in New York, Cleveland and Toronto. He made five All-Star teams, won five Gold Gloves, led the National League in wins twice, in 1974 and 1979, and led the major leagues in ERA at 1.87 in 1967. On August 5, 1973, he no-hit the San Diego Padres for the Braves' first no-hitter since the move to Atlanta. At 46, on October 6, 1985, he shut out Toronto for career win number 300, and he is still the only knuckleballer to reach 300. He and younger brother Joe won 539 games between them, the most by any pair of brothers. The Hall of Fame elected him in 1997, his fifth year on the ballot, and he died in December 2020 at 81.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 820 | 3 | 26 | 203 | 199 | 152 | 96 | 140 | 1 |
| SGC | 160 | 0 | 1 | 12 | 32 | 36 | 36 | 39 | 4 |
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: #326 Atlanta Braves
More Atlanta Braves cards:
- #10 Tony Cloninger
- #49 Woody Woodward
- #84 Braves 1966 Rookie Stars
- #96 Felipe Alou
- #130 Joe Torre
- #153 Rico Carty
- #168 Dan Osinski
- #184 Denis Menke
- #200 Ed Mathews
- #215 National League 1965 Batting Leaders
- #223 National League 1965 Pitching Leaders
- #237 Billy O'Dell
- #252 Denver Lemaster
- #268 John Blanchard
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #28 card?
It is card #28 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Phil Niekro of the Atlanta Braves.
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.