1966 Topps #450 Tony Oliva
About Tony Oliva
He turns up three times. Card #216, the American League 1965 Batting Leaders, puts his .321 over Carl Yastrzemski at .312 and Vic Davalillo at .301, the only other men in the league to reach .300 that year. Card #220, the 1965 RBI Leaders, lists his 98 behind Rocky Colavito and Willie Horton. Card #450 is his own, a sixth-series card, printed the year after Minnesota took the pennant and lost the World Series to the Dodgers in seven games.
Tony Oliva came out of Pinar del Rio, Cuba, born Pedro Oliva, and reached the United States in the spring of 1961 carrying his brother Antonio's papers, which is how he became Tony; his given name, Pedro, followed him into print for years, though everyone called him Tony. He spent his whole major league career, 1962 through 1976, with the Minnesota Twins, first in right field and later as a designated hitter. After short callups in 1962 and 1963 he was a near-unanimous American League Rookie of the Year in 1964 and took the batting title in the same season, something no player had done before, while leading the league in hits, doubles, runs and total bases. He repeated as batting champion in 1965, when the Twins won the pennant, and won a third crown at .337 in 1971. A Gold Glove came in 1966, and he was an All-Star in each of his first eight full seasons. Knee, leg and shoulder trouble then took the rest: ten games in 1972, then four closing years as the Twins' designated hitter. He finished at .304 with 220 home runs and 947 RBI, coached in Minnesota, had his number 6 retired in 1991, and was voted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in December 2021 for the class of 2022.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 551 | 2 | 37 | 175 | 131 | 99 | 42 | 64 | 1 |
| SGC | 86 | 0 | 1 | 9 | 16 | 21 | 17 | 21 | 1 |
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
More Tony Oliva in this set: #216 League Leaders, #220 League Leaders
Team card: #526 Minnesota Twins
More Minnesota Twins cards:
- #3 Sam Mele
- #22 Joe Nossek
- #40 Jim Grant
- #56 Sandy Valdespino
- #73 Jerry Zimmerman
- #97 Jim Merritt
- #120 Harmon Killebrew
- #181 Al Worthington
- #190 Jimmie Hall
- #207 Frank Quilici
- #216 American League 1965 Batting Leaders
- #220 American League 1965 RBI Leaders
- #224 American League 1965 Pitching Leaders
- #240 Earl Battey
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1966 Topps #450 card?
It is card #450 of the 598-card 1966 Topps Baseball set, picturing Tony Oliva of the Minnesota Twins.
Why is #450 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.