1968 Topps #472 Walt Alston
About this card
This is one of the twenty manager cards in the 1968 Topps set, numbered among the regular cards rather than grouped as a subset.
About Walt Alston
A sixth-series card at #472, and the grimmest card in Alston's Topps run. Without Koufax, and with Tommy Davis and Maury Wills both traded away over the winter, the 1967 Dodgers fell to 73-89 and eighth place, 28 and a half games out. It was the franchise's worst record since the war-thinned 1944 season and its worst peacetime mark since 1937, and Los Angeles would not reach the postseason again until 1974.
Walter Emmons Alston got into exactly one major-league game, sent to first base for the ejected Johnny Mize by the 1936 St. Louis Cardinals and struck out by Lon Warneke in his only at-bat, then built a Hall of Fame career from the dugout instead. He spent 19 years in the minor leagues as a player, player-manager and manager, among them the 1946 Nashua Dodgers, the first US-based integrated professional team of the century, where he handled Roy Campanella and Don Newcombe, and six seasons at Brooklyn's Triple-A clubs in St. Paul and Montreal. When Charlie Dressen demanded a multi-year deal, owner Walter O'Malley handed the job to Alston for 1954, on the first of 23 straight one-year contracts. Nicknamed Smokey as a schoolboy pitcher for the speed of his fastball, he was so reserved that writers called him the Quiet Man. Alston led the Dodgers to seven National League pennants and four World Series titles in 1955, 1959, 1963 and 1965, including Brooklyn's only championship, and was named National League Manager of the Year six times. He retired after 1976 with 2,040 regular-season wins in 3,658 games. The Veterans Committee elected him to the Hall of Fame in 1983; a heart attack that year kept him from the ceremony, and he died in Oxford, Ohio, in 1984.
Sources: SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 534 | 7 | 127 | 268 | 60 | 32 | 18 | 22 | 0 |
| SGC | 64 | 1 | 16 | 27 | 6 | 1 | 5 | 8 | 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: #168 Los Angeles Dodgers
More Los Angeles Dodgers cards:
- #9 National League 1967 Pitching Leaders
- #15 Ron Hunt
- #34 Al Ferrara
- #65 John Roseboro
- #88 Phil Regan
- #103 Don Sutton
- #124 Nate Oliver
- #145 Don Drysdale
- #208 Willie Davis
- #228 Dodgers 1968 Rookie Stars
- #249 Bill Singer
- #266 Paul Popovich
- #281 Jim Campanis
- #298 Jim Brewer
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1968 Topps #472 card?
It is card #472 of the 598-card 1968 Topps Baseball set, picturing Walt Alston of the Los Angeles Dodgers. This is one of the twenty manager cards in the 1968 Topps set, numbered among the regular cards rather than grouped as a subset.
Is 1968 Topps #472 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.