1968 Topps #491 Denny Lemaster
About Denny Lemaster
Card #491 comes from the sixth series and is Lemaster's first Topps card as an Astro, issued after the October 8, 1967, trade that sent him and Denis Menke to Houston for Sonny Jackson and Chuck Harrison. The Atlanta season it reports split cleanly in half. Back after eight months of elbow rest, he opened 7-1 with a 2.68 ERA and earned his only All-Star selection, then could not pitch in the game because of a pulled rib-cage muscle suffered a week before it. He was never the same afterward, going 2-8 the rest of the way to land at 9-9 with a 3.34 ERA, eight complete games and 148 strikeouts in 31 starts.
Denver Clayton "Denny" Lemaster was a left-handed pitcher who spent eleven seasons in the majors (1962-1972) with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves, the Houston Astros and the Montreal Expos. Born in Corona, California and raised in Oxnard, he threw seven no-hitters at Oxnard High School and signed with the Braves in 1958 as the club's chosen heir to Warren Spahn. He reached Milwaukee on July 15, 1962, was a 1967 National League All-Star, and moved to Houston that October. He finished 90-105 with a 3.58 ERA, 66 complete games, 14 shutouts and 1,305 strikeouts in 357 games; Joe Torre, who caught him with both Braves clubs, remembered a fastball near 93 miles an hour, a super curve and no fear of working inside. Lemaster later spent more than 30 years in homebuilding, guided hunting and fishing trips, and became an accomplished carver and painter of wooden wildlife. He belongs to the Ventura County Sports Hall of Fame in his native California. He died July 24, 2024, in Loganville, Georgia, at 85.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 374 | 25 | 148 | 163 | 23 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 0 |
| SGC | 24 | 1 | 14 | 7 | 2 | 0 | 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 Houston Astros cards:
- #5 National League 1967 Home Run Leaders
- #21 Ron Davis
- #41 Julio Gotay
- #57 Dan Schneider
- #77 Don Wilson
- #95 Bob Aspromonte
- #128 Houston 1968 Rookie Stars
- #144 Joe Morgan
- #161 Norm Miller
- #182 Dave Giusti
- #207 Carroll Sembera
- #232 Denis Menke
- #260 Jim Wynn
- #274 Mike Cuellar
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #491 card?
It is card #491 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Denny Lemaster of the Houston Astros.
Is 1968 Topps #491 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.