1969 Topps #259 Bill Short
About Bill Short
Card #259 landed in the third series and lists Short with Cincinnati, which had grabbed him in the December 1968 Rule 5 draft after the Mets outrighted him to their Jacksonville farm club. Almost all of the season went to the Reds' Indianapolis affiliate, where he finished 12-7 with a 3.86 ERA. The exception was four Cincinnati relief outings in the first 13 days of June, 11 batters and four earned runs over 2 1/3 innings, the last major league work of his career.
William Ross Short, a 5-foot-9 left-hander from Kingston, New York, was signed by Yankees scout Paul Krichell in 1955 out of Newburgh Free Academy. He climbed from the Class-D Appalachian League through the Evangeline League and Binghamton, breaking out in 1959 at Triple-A Richmond, where a 17-6, 2.48 year made him an International League All-Star and the league's Most Valuable Pitcher. After Army service from October 1959 to April 1960 he won his April 23 Yankees debut as a starter against Baltimore, but a strained elbow and, in 1961, surgery for bone chips and spurs stalled him; the Orioles took him in the November 1961 Rule 5 draft. He spent the next four and a half years in the Baltimore system, mostly at Triple-A Rochester. Apart from a six-start recall to the Orioles in 1966, every big-league inning he threw after 1960 came in relief, for Baltimore, Boston, Pittsburgh, the Mets and finally Cincinnati in 1969. He finished 5-11 with a 4.73 ERA in 73 games, 16 of them starts, including a six-hit shutout of Minnesota on July 1, 1966, the only shutout of his career. He later served as a Pirates minor league pitching instructor, entered the International League Hall of Fame in 2009, and died in 2022 in Sarasota, Florida.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac · Retrosheet
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 158 | 2 | 27 | 85 | 31 | 5 | 5 | 3 | 0 |
| SGC | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 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.
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Related cards
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #259 card?
It is card #259 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bill Short of the Cincinnati Reds.
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.