1969 Topps #547 Billy Martin
About this card
This is one of the 25 manager cards in the 1969 Topps set - one for each of the 24 clubs, with Washington twice (#294 Jim Lemon, the outgoing manager, and #650 Ted Williams, hired that February). Nine of the 25 are Hall of Famers.
About Billy Martin
Martin took over the Twins' third-base coaching box in 1965 and got his first managing job in June 1968 with Minnesota's Triple-A club in Denver. That earned him Cal Ermer's chair for 1969, and he ran the Twins to 97-65 and first place in the brand-new American League West. Baltimore swept the first American League Championship Series in three games; when owner Calvin Griffith asked why he had started Bob Miller in Game Three, Martin told him it was because he was the manager, and he was fired days later. Card #547 sits in the sixth series, but it is his first Topps card in seven years and his first as a manager.
Billy Martin broke in with the New York Yankees on April 18, 1950 and became Casey Stengel's scrappy second baseman on four world championship clubs, batting .333 across five World Series. He was the hitting star of the 1953 Series, tying a record with 12 hits and breaking Babe Ruth's mark with 23 total bases; the Babe Ruth Award went to him as the best player in the Series, the World Series MVP trophy not being created until 1955. Two years in the Army cost him 1954 and most of 1955, and his lone All-Star selection came in 1956. A brawl at the Copacabana nightclub in May 1957 gave general manager George Weiss his opening, and Martin was traded to Kansas City that June, then bounced through Detroit, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Milwaukee and Minnesota before retiring with a .257 average and 64 home runs over 11 seasons. He scouted and coached for the Twins, then managed Minnesota, Detroit, Texas, Oakland and, in five separate stints, the Yankees, winning the 1977 World Series. The firings, most of them by George Steinbrenner, never stopped; he was killed when his truck went off an icy road on Christmas night 1989.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 437 | 3 | 66 | 191 | 76 | 40 | 25 | 36 | 0 |
| SGC | 56 | 0 | 4 | 18 | 13 | 9 | 6 | 6 | 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 Minnesota Twins cards:
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- #30 Bob Allison
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- #77 Ron Perranoski
- #99 Twins 1969 Rookie Stars
- #121 Joe Grzenda
- #146 Jim Perry
- #194 Ted Uhlaender
- #218 John Roseboro
- #242 Frank Kostro
- #265 Chico Cardenas
- #290 Jim Kaat
- #317 Bruce Look
- #336 Jim Roland
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #547 card?
It is card #547 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Billy Martin of the Minnesota Twins. This is one of the 25 manager cards in the 1969 Topps set - one for each of the 24 clubs, with Washington twice (#294 Jim Lemon, the outgoing manager, and #650 Ted Williams, hired that February). Nine of the 25 are Hall of Famers.
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.