1968 Topps #553 Hank Aguirre
About Hank Aguirre
Detroit traded Aguirre to the Los Angeles Dodgers on April 3, 1968, for a player to be named later, and Topps caught the move in time; the Tigers took Fred Moulder a day afterward. The card follows a 1967 season spent almost wholly in relief - one start in 31 games, 41.1 innings, an 0-1 record and a tidy 2.40 ERA. Card #553 is a seventh-series high number and the first of his two Topps cards in Dodger blue.
Hank Aguirre was a 6-foot-4 left-hander who pitched 16 major-league seasons from 1955 to 1970 for the Cleveland Indians, Detroit Tigers, Los Angeles Dodgers and Chicago Cubs - ten of those years in Detroit, acquired with catcher Jim Hegan in a February 1958 trade. Born in Azusa, California, to a father who had emigrated from Jalisco, Mexico, he was called 'Mex' for that Mexican descent. Detroit moved him from the bullpen to the rotation in 1962, and he led the major leagues with a 2.21 ERA, a third of a run better than Sandy Koufax, went 16-8 and was named to both All-Star teams that summer, the only All-Star honors of his career. He finished 75-72 with a 3.25 ERA and was helpless at the plate: a lifetime .085 average and no home runs. Aguirre later coached for the Cubs and worked in the Oakland Athletics organization, then founded Mexican Industries, a Detroit auto-parts supplier that grew from eight employees to more than a thousand. He died of prostate cancer in 1994.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2) · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 327 | 7 | 96 | 174 | 31 | 11 | 3 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 16 | 0 | 4 | 10 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 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
Team card: #168 Los Angeles Dodgers
More Los Angeles Dodgers cards:
- #9 National League 1967 Pitching Leaders
- #15 Ron Hunt
- #34 Al Ferrara
- #65 John Roseboro
- #88 Phil Regan
- #103 Don Sutton
- #124 Nate Oliver
- #145 Don Drysdale
- #208 Willie Davis
- #228 Dodgers 1968 Rookie Stars
- #249 Bill Singer
- #266 Paul Popovich
- #281 Jim Campanis
- #298 Jim Brewer
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #553 card?
It is card #553 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Hank Aguirre of the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Is 1968 Topps #553 a scarce card?
It is a high number card from the seventh print series, #534-598, by the checklist-card division. The last two series together (#458-598) carry only a modest premium; no short-print list exists.
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.