1968 Topps #499 Steve Blass
About Steve Blass
1968 was Blass's breakout year: an 18-6 record, a career-best 2.12 ERA, and a league-leading .750 winning percentage, capped by three straight shutouts in September and a National League Player of the Month award. Card number 499, from the sixth series, pictures him with the Pittsburgh Pirates during that ace-caliber season.
Steve Blass pitched his entire ten-season career for the Pittsburgh Pirates, breaking in during 1964 and settling in as a rotation regular from 1966 on. He peaked between 1968 and 1972, topping out with an 18-6, 2.12 ERA season in 1968 and a 19-8 mark in 1972 that made him an All-Star and Cy Young runner-up. His signature moment came in the 1971 World Series against the Baltimore Orioles, where he threw two complete-game victories, including the clincher in Game Seven, finishing runner-up for Series MVP behind Roberto Clemente. After 1972 he lost his control almost overnight, a decline so sudden and unexplained that it entered the baseball lexicon as its own syndrome. He pitched sparingly in 1973 and 1974 before retiring, then spent decades afterward as a Pirates broadcaster, later inducted into the Pittsburgh Pirates and Charleston, West Virginia baseball halls of fame. A right-hander who signed with Pittsburgh out of a Connecticut high school in 1960, he finished with a 103-76 record and a 3.63 ERA over 1,597.1 innings.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 364 | 38 | 129 | 141 | 30 | 14 | 5 | 7 | 0 |
| SGC | 19 | 0 | 10 | 8 | 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
Team card: #308 Pittsburgh Pirates
More Pittsburgh Pirates cards:
- #1 National League 1967 Batting Leaders
- #3 National League 1967 RBI Leaders
- #19 Juan Pizarro
- #36 Pirates 1968 Rookie Stars
- #53 Gene Alley
- #70 Bob Veale
- #86 Willie Stargell
- #150 Bob Clemente
- #175 Maury Wills
- #198 Roy Face
- #215 Jim Bunning
- #251 Manny Sanguillen
- #270 Matty Alou
- #288 Dave Wickersham
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #499 card?
It is card #499 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Steve Blass of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Is 1968 Topps #499 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.