1968 Topps #495 Leon Wagner
About Leon Wagner
Card #495 lands in the sixth series and shows him in Cleveland, where new manager Alvin Dark had little use for his glove and used him sparingly: 38 games, 49 at-bats, a .184 average before the trade. The Indians sent him to the Chicago White Sox on June 13 for Russ Snyder, and the rest of the year he spent as the American League's busiest pinch-hitter, leading the circuit with 46 pinch-hit appearances. Across both clubs he came to bat 211 times and hit .261 with one home run and 24 RBIs.
Leon Lamar Wagner (May 13, 1934 - January 3, 2004) was a left-handed-hitting outfielder who played twelve major-league seasons between 1958 and 1969 for the San Francisco Giants, St. Louis Cardinals, Los Angeles Angels, Cleveland Indians, and Chicago White Sox. New York Giants scout Ray Lucas signed him off a Michigan sandlot team in 1954, and he punished minor-league pitching - 51 home runs in the Carolina League in 1956 - while committing enough outfield errors to worry every manager he had. Blocked in San Francisco and St. Louis, he finally got a regular job with the expansion Angels in 1961 and became their first real slugger, peaking in 1962 with 37 home runs, 107 RBIs, a fourth-place MVP finish, and the All-Star Game MVP award, the first American Leaguer to win it. The press tagged him 'Daddy Wags' for the loose, below-the-waist wiggle he went through in the batter's box. Traded to Cleveland after the 1963 season, he anchored the Indians' outfield for three productive years, then slid into a platoon and pinch-hitting role as he turned 33. He finished at .272 with 211 home runs and 669 RBIs, and later sold cars and did public-relations work before his death in Los Angeles in 2004.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · National Baseball Hall of Fame · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 229 | 7 | 48 | 109 | 34 | 13 | 9 | 9 | 0 |
| SGC | 13 | 0 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 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 Cleveland Indians cards:
- #8 American League 1967 ERA Leaders
- #12 American League 1967 Strikeout Leaders
- #16 Indians 1968 Rookie Stars
- #35 Steve Hargan
- #54 Stan Williams
- #71 Vern Fuller
- #94 Lee Maye
- #115 Sam McDowell
- #176 Bob Allen
- #197 Larry Brown
- #218 Ken Suarez
- #237 Alvin Dark
- #269 Bob Tiefenauer
- #295 Sonny Siebert
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #495 card?
It is card #495 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Leon Wagner of the Cleveland Indians.
Is 1968 Topps #495 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.