1968 Topps #279 Bill Hands
About Bill Hands
Card #279, from series 3, captures Hands in his first year as a full-time starter for the Cubs. At age 28 he made 34 starts, threw 11 complete games and posted a 16-10 record with a 2.89 ERA over 258.2 innings, establishing himself as a reliable frontline arm alongside Ferguson Jenkins in Chicago's rotation the season before his career-best 1969 campaign.
Bill Hands was a right-handed pitcher who spent eleven seasons in the majors from 1965 to 1975, most of them as a workhorse starter for the Chicago Cubs. A New Jersey native who pitched college ball at Fairleigh Dickinson and Ohio Wesleyan, he signed with the San Francisco Giants and debuted with them in 1965. After that season he was dealt to the Cubs along with catcher Randy Hundley for outfielder Don Landrum and reliever Lindy McDaniel, a trade that came to be viewed as one of the best in Cubs history. Hands anchored Chicago's rotation for seven years alongside Hall of Famer Ferguson Jenkins, topping out in 1969 with a 20-14 record, a 2.49 ERA and 300 innings pitched. Jenkins later described him as an even-tempered competitor with a good sinking fastball and sharp slider who did his job without complaint on a team full of stars. Hands closed his career with the Minnesota Twins and Texas Rangers, finishing 111-110 with a 3.35 ERA over 374 games.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 246 | 9 | 49 | 128 | 33 | 13 | 9 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 12 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 2 | 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. 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 Chicago Cubs cards:
- #5 National League 1967 Home Run Leaders
- #9 National League 1967 Pitching Leaders
- #11 National League 1967 Strikeout Leaders
- #13 Chuck Hartenstein
- #37 Billy Williams
- #60 Ken Holtzman
- #83 John Stephenson
- #101 Glenn Beckert
- #119 Ted Savage
- #136 Randy Hundley
- #159 Don Kessinger
- #179 Bill Stoneman
- #184 Lou Johnson
- #202 Adolfo Phillips
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #279 card?
It is card #279 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Hands of the Chicago Cubs.
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.