1968 Topps #276 Jim Roland
About Jim Roland
Number 276 in the 1968 set is a third-series card. It marks his last season in Minnesota, by which point mop-up work was the whole job: 28 appearances, only four of them starts, 61 2/3 innings, a 4-1 record and a 3.50 ERA. One of those four starts produced the final win of his Twins career, a complete-game five-hitter against the Washington Senators on August 27. The club had spent the previous fall sending him to the Florida Instructional League to rebuild a delivery gone sloppy under Early Wynn's eye, and a winter pitching for Aragua in Venezuela did more for his outlook on life than for his place on the staff.
James Ivan Roland Jr. (1942-2010) was a left-handed pitcher, born in Franklin, North Carolina and raised in Raleigh, where a blazing fastball at Needham Broughton High School brought the scouts around. The Minnesota Twins signed him on his graduation in 1961 for a $50,000 bonus, reported at the time as the largest the Senators/Twins franchise had ever paid a pitcher. A 6-foot-3 southpaw with a hard fastball and a sharp curve, he debuted as a 19-year-old in September 1962 and pitched parts of six seasons for Minnesota (1962-64, 1966-68), his climb stalled by an elbow that gave out in 1963 and by two seasons stuck in Triple-A. Sold to the Oakland Athletics in February 1969, he settled in as a long reliever and mop-up man, the role that drew his best work out of him. He finished in 1972 with short stints for Oakland, the New York Yankees and the Texas Rangers, closing a ten-year career at 19-17 with a 3.22 ERA, nine saves and 272 strikeouts in 216 games. He then returned to North Carolina, represented a sporting-goods company, and was active in his Shelby church until his death from cancer in 2010.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 261 | 9 | 77 | 122 | 25 | 13 | 10 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 19 | 0 | 4 | 12 | 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
Team card: #137 Minnesota Twins
More Minnesota Twins cards:
- #4 American League 1967 RBI Leaders
- #6 American League 1967 Home Run Leaders
- #10 American League 1967 Pitching Leaders
- #12 American League 1967 Strikeout Leaders
- #28 Ted Uhlaender
- #44 Frank Kostro
- #64 Jim Merritt
- #80 Rod Carew
- #91 Jim Ollom
- #111 Rich Reese
- #165 Tony Oliva
- #181 Jerry Zimmerman
- #206 Cal Ermer
- #220 Harmon Killebrew
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #276 card?
It is card #276 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Jim Roland of the Minnesota Twins.
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.