1968 Topps #169 Bob Bolin
About Bob Bolin
Card #169 is a second-series base card, and it is the one that reports the worst year of his Giants run. In 1967 Bolin made 15 starts among 37 appearances, worked only 120 innings and went 6-8 with a 4.88 ERA, roughly two full runs above the 2.76 and 2.89 he had posted the two seasons before. He recorded no complete games and no shutouts at all, after 17 complete games and seven shutouts across 1964 through 1966. Anyone reading the back in the spring of 1968 would have written him off as a swingman on the way down, which the next year's cards would show was exactly the wrong call.
Bob Bolin grew up on the family farm near Smyrna, South Carolina, pulled for the Dodgers as a boy, and threw four straight no-hitters as a high school senior. A Pittsburgh contract pressed on him by Branch Rickey was voided by the commissioner, and Giants scout Tim Murchison won him over by listing the young arms already stacked up on the Dodger staff. Bolin signed with the New York Giants in November 1956 at seventeen. The 6-foot-4 right-hander threw two more no-hitters in the minors, in 1957 and 1959, and Eugene manager Roy Partee's switch to a sidearm delivery tightened his control before he reached the majors on April 18, 1961. He spent 1961 through 1969 with San Francisco, swinging between rotation and bullpen, and worked two games of the 1962 World Series. His best year was 1968, when he went 10-5 with a 1.99 ERA, second in the National League behind only Bob Gibson's 1.12. Traded to the Seattle Pilots in December 1969, he pitched for the club once it became the Milwaukee Brewers, then finished in Boston from 1970 to 1973 with a career-high 15 saves in his last season. He retired 88-75 with a 3.40 ERA and 1,175 strikeouts in 495 games, was later named to the Giants' Wall of Fame, and died in 2023 at 84.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 225 | 3 | 45 | 126 | 22 | 15 | 3 | 10 | 1 |
| SGC | 12 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 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 San Francisco Giants cards:
- #5 National League 1967 Home Run Leaders
- #9 National League 1967 Pitching Leaders
- #11 National League 1967 Strikeout Leaders
- #32 Joe Gibbon
- #50 Willie Mays
- #73 Jim Hart
- #85 Gaylord Perry
- #104 Dick Dietz
- #126 Bobby Etheridge
- #147 Frank Linzy
- #185 Tom Haller
- #205 Juan Marichal
- #223 Ollie Brown
- #239 Bill Henry
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #169 card?
It is card #169 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bob Bolin of the San Francisco Giants.
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.