1968 Topps #27 Gil Hodges
About this card
This is one of the twenty manager cards in the 1968 Topps set, numbered among the regular cards rather than grouped as a subset.
About Gil Hodges
Card 27, from the first series, has Hodges already under a New York heading, though the year behind it was his last in Washington: 76-85 and sixth place, the best of his five seasons there. The Mets, who had never finished a season above .500, pried him loose that offseason by paying the Senators $100,000 and sending them pitcher Bill Denehy. He signed for three years and $150,000.
Gil Hodges played 18 major league seasons -- one game in 1943, then 1947 through 1963 -- and spent nearly all of them at first base for the Brooklyn and Los Angeles Dodgers, in a lineup with Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Roy Campanella and Duke Snider. Born in Princeton, Indiana, the son of a coal miner, he left the Dodgers 11 days after his debut to join the Marines, serving as an anti-aircraft gunner at Tinian and Okinawa and earning a Bronze Star with a combat V. He returned as the outstanding first baseman of the 1950s: eight All-Star selections, 370 home runs, 1,274 runs batted in, a .273 average, four home runs in a single game against the Braves on August 31, 1950, and the first three Gold Gloves ever awarded at his position. He anchored six Dodgers pennant winners, drove in both runs in the seventh game that finally gave Brooklyn a World Series in 1955, and batted .391 when Los Angeles won the 1959 Series. Managing followed: five rebuilding years with the expansion Washington Senators, then the Mets, whom he took to 100 wins and the 1969 championship. He died of a heart attack on April 2, 1972, two days short of his 48th birthday, and entered the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 2022.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame · Baseball Almanac · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 813 | 16 | 128 | 310 | 132 | 80 | 62 | 85 | 0 |
| SGC | 147 | 0 | 16 | 28 | 35 | 16 | 21 | 30 | 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
Team card: #401 New York Mets
More New York Mets cards:
- #45 Tom Seaver
- #63 Dick Kenworthy
- #92 Ed Kranepool
- #114 Ron Swoboda
- #132 Bud Harrelson
- #177 Mets 1968 Rookie Stars
- #191 Dan Frisella
- #211 J.C. Martin
- #236 Tug McGraw
- #254 Cleon Jones
- #277 Jerry Buchek
- #292 Art Shamsky
- #313 Al Weis
- #345 Bob Hendley
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #27 card?
It is card #27 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Gil Hodges of the New York Mets. This is one of the twenty manager cards in the 1968 Topps set, numbered among the regular cards rather than grouped as a subset.
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.