1969 Topps #649 Al Jackson
About Al Jackson
Card 649 sits in the high-number seventh series, the hardest run of numbers in the 1969 set. It pictures a Met who would not last the summer. Nine relief outings produced no decisions and 13 earned runs in 11 innings, a 10.64 ERA, and with Tom Seaver, Jerry Koosman and Nolan Ryan filling out the staff New York sold him to Cincinnati for cash on June 13. He missed the miracle by four months, pitched 33 games in relief for the Reds at a 5.27 ERA, made his last big league appearance on September 26 and was released the following spring.
Alvin Neill Jackson, born December 26, 1935 in Waco, Texas, was a 5-foot-10 left-hander who pitched ten major league seasons between 1959 and 1969 for the Pittsburgh Pirates, New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals and Cincinnati Reds. The 13th of 13 children, he attended Wiley College in Marshall, Texas, and signed with Pittsburgh in 1955, but the Pirates used him in only 11 games across 1959 and 1961 and left him unprotected for the National League expansion draft of October 1961. The Mets took him 22nd overall, and he became the young franchise's most durable starter; his 43 Mets wins stood as the club record until Tom Seaver passed the mark in 1969. Two seasons in St. Louis brought the best pitching of his life and a World Series ring, after which he returned to New York. He finished 67-99 with a 3.98 ERA, 54 complete games, 14 shutouts and 738 strikeouts. Jackson later coached for the Boston Red Sox, Baltimore Orioles and Mets and spent decades as a Mets minor league pitching instructor. He died in 2019 at 83 and was honored posthumously in 2021 with the Mets Hall of Fame Achievement Award.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 325 | 1 | 29 | 170 | 85 | 25 | 9 | 6 | 0 |
| SGC | 17 | 0 | 1 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 1 | 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.
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Related cards
More New York Mets cards:
- #31 Mets 1969 Rookie Stars
- #55 Jerry Grote
- #72 Ron Taylor
- #90 Jerry Koosman
- #112 J.C. Martin
- #127 Kevin Collins
- #144 Bob Hendley
- #193 Don Cardwell
- #221 Art Shamsky
- #245 Ed Charles
- #269 Al Weis
- #303 Cal Koonce
- #321 Jim McAndrew
- #343 Dan Frisella
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #649 card?
It is card #649 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Al Jackson of the New York Mets.
Why is #649 harder to find?
It is a high number card from the seventh and last print series, #589-664 - the scarce end of the set.
How many cards are in the 1969 Topps Baseball set?
664 cards, tracked as 696 collectible states. Numbers run from 1 to 664 with none skipped and no printed number shared by two cards; 32 cards carry catalogued print variations that the master set counts separately, 23 of them the yellow- and white-letter name pairs of #440-511.
Sources: Trading Card Database, PSA CardFacts, Cardboard Connection, Baseball Almanac, 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.