1969 Topps #538 Charlie Smith
About Charlie Smith
The Yankees traded Smith to San Francisco for second baseman Nate Oliver on December 6, 1968, and the Giants sold his contract to the Cubs on March 28, 1969, near the end of spring training. Chicago used him twice, two games and two hitless at-bats, the last of them on April 22, before he went to Tacoma of the Pacific Coast League for the rest of the year. Those two games made him the first player to appear for both Chicago clubs and both New York clubs. Card #538 is a sixth-series number, and it shows him as a Cub in packs that arrived after his major league career had already ended.
Charles William Smith, a right-handed-hitting third baseman born September 15, 1937 in Charleston, South Carolina, signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers as an amateur free agent in 1957, among the last players inked before the franchise moved to Los Angeles. Originally a shortstop, he switched to third base in 1960 at Spokane, batting .293 with 73 home runs and 330 RBIs over four seasons in the farm system before debuting with the Dodgers as a September call-up in 1960. Over the next decade he changed addresses constantly, playing for the Dodgers, Phillies, White Sox, Mets, Cardinals, Yankees and Cubs. His biggest years came with the Mets in the mid-1960s, and after a career-best season in St. Louis the Yankees acquired him from the Cardinals straight up for Roger Maris in December 1966. He finished with a .239 average, 69 home runs and 281 RBIs in 771 games. He made his home in Reno, Nevada, where he had broken in at 19 with the Class C Silver Sox, and he died there on November 29, 1994 at 57, of a blood clot after knee surgery.
Sources: Wikipedia · Baseball-Reference · Baseball Almanac (1) · Baseball Almanac (2)
Graded population (PSA & SGC)
| Grader | Total | 10 | 9 | 8 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 1-4 | Auth |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| PSA | 301 | 11 | 99 | 130 | 34 | 12 | 10 | 5 | 0 |
| SGC | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 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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Related cards
More Chicago Cubs cards:
- #4 National League 1968 RBI Leaders
- #6 National League 1968 Home Run Leaders
- #10 National League 1968 Pitching Leaders
- #12 National League 1968 Strikeout Leaders
- #20 Ernie Banks
- #43 Joe Niekro
- #63 Jim Hickman
- #88 Rich Nye
- #115 Bill Hands
- #147 Leo Durocher
- #171 Glenn Beckert
- #198 Willie Smith
- #225 Don Kessinger
- #247 Gene Oliver
Frequently asked questions
What is the 1969 Topps #538 card?
It is card #538 of the 664-card 1969 Topps Baseball set, picturing Charlie Smith of the Chicago Cubs.
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.