1968 Topps #453 Sammy Ellis
About Sammy Ellis
Series-five card #453 is the first to show Ellis as a California Angel. Cincinnati sent him west on November 29, 1967, with pitchers Bill Kelso and Jorge Rubio going the other way. The stat line on the back is his goodbye to the Reds: 8-11 with a 3.84 ERA over 32 games and 175.2 innings in 1967, closing out five big league seasons in Cincinnati that began with his debut in 1962. He went 54-45 for the Reds in all, with 569 strikeouts.
Samuel Joseph Ellis was born February 11, 1941, in Youngstown, Ohio, and signed with the Cincinnati Reds as an amateur free agent in 1961 for a $50,000 bonus after a single year of college baseball at Mississippi State. He went 10-3 with a 1.89 ERA for Class A Columbia that first summer, reached Cincinnati on April 14, 1962, and no-hit the Tacoma Giants for Triple-A San Diego on August 14, 1962. His peak came in 1965: 22-10 with a 3.79 ERA, 183 strikeouts, 15 complete games and his only All-Star selection. A sore arm arrived the next season and he never had another winning year, moving on to the California Angels and then the Chicago White Sox. Ellis finished 63-58 with a 4.15 ERA and 677 strikeouts in seven major league seasons, then spent twelve seasons as a big league pitching coach, most famously turning Dave Righetti into a reliever for the 1984 Yankees. He died of cancer on May 13, 2016, in Temple Terrace, Florida, at 75.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · BaseballCardPedia
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 218 | 3 | 17 | 107 | 54 | 21 | 9 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 13 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 3 | 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: #252 California Angels
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- #52 Hawk Taylor
- #75 Don Mincher
- #102 Jose Cardenal
- #121 Jimmie Hall
- #143 Pete Cimino
- #170 Jim Fregosi
- #193 Jack Hamilton
- #216 Bubba Morton
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- #271 Bobby Knoop
- #289 Woody Held
- #305 Minnie Rojas
- #328 Angels 1968 Rookie Stars
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #453 card?
It is card #453 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Sammy Ellis of the California Angels.
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.