1969 Topps #342 Bubba Morton
About Bubba Morton
A players' strike before the season won pension eligibility for four-year men like Morton, who at 37 called it the best news he had received in six months. He also hit a career-high seven home runs, two of them off Tommy John, the second a 420-foot drive through wind and mist that accounted for every run in a 2-1 win over the White Sox on July 6. He started 44 games, hit .244 in 172 at-bats with 32 RBIs, and walked enough to hold a .356 on-base percentage before making his last big-league appearance on September 28. Card 342 falls in the fourth series, and it is the last of the five Topps cards he had in the 1960s.
Wycliffe Nathaniel Morton, known as Bubba, was born December 13, 1931, in Washington, D.C., served four years in the Coast Guard as a radio operator, then enrolled at Howard University, where he majored in engineering and lettered in football and baseball. Detroit signed him in March 1955 as the third Black player in the organization's history, and he spent six seasons in the minors, opening 1957 as one of the first two Black players for the Durham Bulls and winning the Venezuelan winter-league batting title at .389 after the 1960 season. A right-handed spray hitter with speed and excellent defense, he made Detroit's roster in 1961 and played parts of seven big-league seasons as a platoon outfielder and pinch-hitter for the Tigers, Milwaukee Braves, and California Angels, finishing with a .267 average, 14 home runs, and 128 RBIs in 451 games. After a 1970 season in Japan with the Toei Flyers he settled in Seattle, and in December 1971 he was hired to run the University of Washington baseball program, becoming the school's first Black head coach in any sport; he held the job through 1976. He died in Seattle on January 14, 2006.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 168 | 2 | 23 | 87 | 39 | 7 | 6 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 3 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 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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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #342 card?
It is card #342 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Bubba Morton of the California Angels.
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.