1966 Topps #453 Ron Kline
About Ron Kline
Number 453 sits in the sixth series of the 1966 set, and it caps the biggest season of Kline's relief career. In 1965 he appeared in 74 games, finished 58 of them and saved 29, the most in the American League. He was 7-6 with a 2.63 ERA across 99 1/3 innings for a Washington club that went 70-92 and finished eighth. Only once in his four Washington summers did another Senators pitcher get into more games than he did, and 1965 was not that year - he outworked the rest of the staff by eleven appearances.
Ron Kline was a right-handed pitcher who worked parts of seventeen major-league seasons between 1952 and 1970, missing 1953 and 1954 for Army service during the Korean War. Signed by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1950 out of a tryout camp at Forbes Field, the Callery, Pennsylvania, native broke in with a last-place Pittsburgh club and spent the 1950s as a hard-luck starter, twice leading the National League in losses despite earned run averages in the mid-3.00s. Passed along through St. Louis, the expansion Los Angeles Angels and Detroit, he reinvented himself in Washington, where four straight bullpen seasons from 1963 through 1966 brought 83 saves and an earned run average under 3.00 every year. Over 736 games for nine clubs he went 114-144 with a 3.75 ERA, 989 strikeouts and 108 saves, the best of it coming after he stopped starting. He bought a tavern in Callery in 1969, ran it for years as Ronnie Kline's Bullpen, and later served as the borough's mayor.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 219 | 0 | 31 | 116 | 45 | 16 | 7 | 3 | 1 |
| SGC | 3 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 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
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- #312 Bob Saverine
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #453 card?
It is card #453 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ron Kline of the Washington Senators.
Why is #453 harder to find?
It is from the sixth print series, #447-522 - noticeably tougher than the first five. Nothing in #447-522 is short-printed.
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.