1969 Topps #303 Cal Koonce
About Cal Koonce
Number 303 in the 1969 third series is Koonce's second Mets card. The back reports the best year of his career: 55 games in 1968, all but two in relief, a 6-4 record, 11 saves and a 2.42 ERA over 97 innings, the lowest of any full season he pitched. Only Ron Taylor worked more often out of Gil Hodges' bullpen. Collectors buying this card in 1969 got a pitcher in the middle of the Miracle Mets run: he finished 6-3 with seven saves that summer, was hit hard enough early to end at 4.99, and never pitched in the World Series, where New York's starters left the bullpen fewer than six innings of work.
Calvin Lee Koonce, a right-handed pitcher born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, on November 18, 1940, grew up in Hope Mills and played baseball and basketball at Campbell College, then a two-year school, where he earned junior college All-American honors in 1961. The Cubs signed him that May, and he reached Chicago in April 1962. Over parts of ten seasons with the Cubs, New York Mets and Boston Red Sox through 1971 he went 47-49 with a 3.78 ERA, 504 strikeouts and 24 saves in 334 games, 90 of them starts, moving from the rotation to the bullpen as he went. His best year came in 1968 with the Mets, and he was a reliable relief arm on the 1969 World Series champions under Gil Hodges. A Campbell man like Gaylord Perry, Koonce admitted while still active that he loaded an occasional pitch with perspiration. He later coached seven seasons at his alma mater, Campbell University, retiring in 1986 as its winningest baseball coach at 174-123 and as Big South Coach of the Year, and he was inducted into the Campbell Sports Hall of Fame in 1987. He scouted for the Texas Rangers, ran the minor league Fayetteville Generals, and died of lymphoma on October 28, 1993, at 52.
Sources: Wikipedia · SABR BioProject · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 379 | 10 | 65 | 219 | 54 | 21 | 6 | 4 | 0 |
| SGC | 14 | 0 | 2 | 7 | 5 | 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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- #112 J.C. Martin
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Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #303 card?
It is card #303 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Cal Koonce of the New York Mets.
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.