1966 Topps #290 Ron Santo
About Ron Santo
The series-four #290 is one of the set's marquee Cubs cards, and 1965 earns the billing: .285 with a personal-best 33 home runs, 101 RBI, a third straight All-Star trip and a second Gold Glove. Santo played 164 games at third base that year, still the major league record at the position, inside a run of 364 consecutive games at third that set a National League mark. Leo Durocher took over the club the next spring and called him the best in the league, offensively and defensively.
Ron Santo played third base for the Chicago Cubs from 1960 through 1973 and finished with the crosstown White Sox in 1974. Born in Seattle in 1940, he signed with the Cubs as a free agent in 1959 for a $20,000 bonus and reached the majors a year and three months later. He became the National League's best third baseman of the decade: nine All-Star selections, five straight Gold Gloves from 1964 through 1968, and a bat that produced a .300 average and 30 home runs four times each. From 1963 through 1970 he drove in at least 90 runs eight years running, still the only third baseman in major league history to do it. He led the league in walks four times and set National League career records for assists, total chances and double plays at the position. Santo played the whole time with type 1 diabetes, diagnosed at 18 and kept quiet until a day held in his honor at Wrigley Field in August 1971; the disease later cost him both legs. He called Cubs games on WGN radio from 1990 until his death in 2010 and helped raise tens of millions of dollars for diabetes research. The Golden Era Committee elected him to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in December 2011; he was inducted in 2012.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 561 | 2 | 45 | 171 | 124 | 93 | 49 | 77 | 0 |
| SGC | 94 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 18 | 25 | 21 | 20 | 2 |
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: #204 Chicago Cubs
More Chicago Cubs cards:
- #2 Ted Abernathy
- #24 Don Kessinger
- #43 Don Landrum
- #63 Jim Stewart
- #82 Bob Hendley
- #110 Ernie Banks
- #139 Cubs 1966 Rookie Stars
- #146 George Altman
- #166 Chris Krug
- #185 Bob Buhl
- #217 National League 1965 Home Run Leaders
- #232 Glenn Beckert
- #246 Ed Bailey
- #278 Calvin Koonce
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #290 card?
It is card #290 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Ron Santo of the Chicago Cubs.
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.