1968 Topps #135 Paul Blair
About Paul Blair
1968 Topps #135 comes from the set's second series and landed in a hard year. Blair had broken his right ankle the previous December while playing winter ball in Puerto Rico and missed most of spring training; his average sank to .211 and he started only 100 games. The glove held up anyway, a .993 fielding percentage in center field, and Baltimore kept building toward the team that would beat Cincinnati for the 1970 World Series title.
Paul Blair broke in with the Baltimore Orioles in September 1964 and spent thirteen seasons as their center fielder, anchoring the outfield of the club that won four American League pennants and two World Series titles between 1966 and 1970. Born in Cushing, Oklahoma, and raised in Los Angeles, he was signed by the Mets as a shortstop in 1961 and drafted away by Baltimore a year later. His instincts in center were the rarest thing about him: he played shallow on purpose and ran down the balls hit over his head, winning eight Gold Gloves, seven of them in a row from 1969 through 1975. He made two All-Star teams, in 1969 and 1973, and his most productive year came in 1969, when he hit .285 with 26 home runs, 76 RBI and 102 runs and became the first Oriole with 20 homers and 20 stolen bases in the same season. Traded to the New York Yankees in January 1977, he won two more championships as a reserve outfielder, then closed out his career with a short stop in Cincinnati and a last handful of games back in New York in 1980. His manager at Stockton hung the nickname Motormouth on him in 1963 for his nonstop talking. Baltimore elected him to the Orioles Hall of Fame in 1984.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 267 | 3 | 40 | 124 | 57 | 20 | 7 | 16 | 0 |
| SGC | 18 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 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: #334 Baltimore Orioles
More Baltimore Orioles cards:
- #2 American League 1967 Batting Leaders
- #4 American League 1967 RBI Leaders
- #20 Brooks Robinson
- #42 Larry Haney
- #56 Orioles 1968 Rookie Stars
- #82 Sam Bowens
- #97 Tom Phoebus
- #118 Mark Belanger
- #163 Gene Brabender
- #186 Eddie Watt
- #194 Don Buford
- #204 Andy Etchebarren
- #222 Jim Hardin
- #242 Moe Drabowsky
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #135 card?
It is card #135 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Paul Blair of the Baltimore Orioles.
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.