1968 Topps #470 Bill Freehan
About Bill Freehan
Freehan has two cards in the 1968 set: Sporting News All-Star #375 in series 5, a plain number whose back is one piece of the picture puzzle that subset's backs form, and base card #470, a series-6 card. Both follow his 1967 season, when he played 155 games, batted .282 with 20 home runs, 74 RBI and a .389 on-base percentage, was hit by 20 pitches and collected a third straight Gold Glove. He finished third in the AL MVP voting after Detroit came up one game short of the pennant.
Bill Freehan was born November 29, 1941, in Detroit, Michigan. At the University of Michigan he caught and played end and linebacker in football, batting an all-time Big Ten record .585 as a sophomore in 1961 and winning All-America honors as a catcher before signing with his hometown Tigers. He debuted that September and spent his entire 15-year career (1961, 1963-1976) behind the plate for Detroit, making 11 All-Star teams and winning five straight Gold Gloves from 1965 through 1969. He held the major league record for a catcher's career fielding percentage (.9933) until 2002 and the career putouts mark (9,941) into the late 1980s. He was Detroit's catcher for the 1968 championship and finished runner-up in that season's AL MVP voting. Freehan later coached Michigan's baseball team from 1989 to 1995 and instructed Tigers catchers; he was inducted into the Michigan Sports Hall of Fame in 1982. He died August 19, 2021, at 79, of Alzheimer's disease.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 853 | 57 | 289 | 376 | 79 | 24 | 11 | 16 | 1 |
| SGC | 42 | 0 | 11 | 18 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 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. Slabs of the yellow team-letter #49 and #66 are 1968 Milton Bradley game cards and are not counted here.
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Related cards
More Bill Freehan in this set: #375 Sporting News All-Stars
Team card: #528 Detroit Tigers
More Detroit Tigers cards:
- #2 American League 1967 Batting Leaders
- #10 American League 1967 Pitching Leaders
- #22 Pat Dobson
- #40 Denny McLain
- #58 Ed Mathews
- #78 Jim Northrup
- #113 Tigers 1968 Rookie Stars
- #129 Mickey Stanley
- #160 Earl Wilson
- #178 Don Wert
- #201 Mike Marshall
- #226 Jimmie Price
- #240 Al Kaline
- #256 Norm Cash
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #470 card?
It is card #470 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Freehan of the Detroit Tigers.
Is 1968 Topps #470 a scarce card?
It is from the sixth print series (cards 458-533). Together with series 7 it forms the #458-598 block that hobby sources price at a modest premium; several catalogs call these cards high numbers outright.
How many cards are in the 1968 Topps Baseball set?
598 cards, tracked as 606 collectible states. The numbers run from 1 to 598 without a gap and no printed number carries two different cards; eight cards - six of the seven checklists, #10 AL Pitching Leaders and #400 Mike McCormick - carry a catalogued print variation that the master set counts separately.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, BaseballCardPedia, Baseball Almanac, Beckett, 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 2026-10-12.